Voters on both sides of the political aisle are approaching the Nov. 6 general election with concern – and for good reason. No less than the secretary of homeland security has confirmed the government has “seen a willingness and a capability on the part of the Russians” to hack into our election infrastructure, including voter rolls and voting machines. Congress made $380 million available to help states guard against cyberattacks, but Indiana’s $7.5 million share isn’t enough to provide the security Hoosiers deserve. Secretary of State Connie Lawson announced Indiana will use its federal funds to enhance election security but said those enhancements don’t include voting machines statewide capable of producing a voter-verifiable paper trail. “The Secretary of State’s office will coordinate and plan with the Indiana General Assembly for future replacement of voting equipment since the required budget to replace direct-recording electronic voting machines without a voter-verified paper trail requires a larger amount than the available 2018 HAVA Elections Security Grant Funds,” Lawson wrote in a letter to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.
Five percent of the federal grant must be matched with state money. Indiana put $659,000 toward election security improvements.
The League of Women Voters of Indiana is understandably concerned. In a white paper released last month, the league noted Indiana was one of two states – Florida was the other – to receive a grade of F in an assessment of election security done by the left-leaning Center for American Progress. Indiana’s lack of voter-verifiable paper ballots was one factor in the state’s discouraging mark.
“The most important aspect of a voting system, with respect to accuracy, integrity and security, is whether or not it is independently auditable,” according to Verified Voting, a nonpartisan organization that advocates for verifiable elections. “That is, the very prerequisite to accuracy, integrity and security in today’s voting technology is that there be a voter-marked paper ballot, or at least a voter-verifiable paper audit trail, for every vote cast. This ensures that election officials will have something they can use to confirm whether or not the electronic tallies produced by the voting system accurately reflected the intention of the voters.”
Full Article: Paper trail | Opinion | The Journal Gazette.