The “right to vote” in America has been taking something of a licking recently. Last week Yahoo reported that the FBI was trying to find out how Internet hackers accessed hundreds of thousands of voter registration records in Illinois and Arizona. As if a further reminder was needed in the age of Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, the unauthorized access to voter records underscored the vulnerability of the nation’s computer system and the impact that exposure could have on constitutional institutions, said Louisiana Secretary of State Tom Schedler. He and other officers of the National Association of Secretaries of State on Aug. 15 discussed cyber security with U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson. Johnson offered assistance, perhaps making voting records part of the nation’s secured infrastructure.
But that might be too much help from the federal government in what essentially is a state and local function. “We think making elections on par with the electrical grid and the banking system is overkill,” Schedler said last week. He’s giving testimony in Washington later this week.
Besides, these voter registration breaches seem to be more about greed than about influencing American elections, which was more the goal in hacking the Democratic National Committee, Schedler said.
Election databases hold personal information that, when used in concert with other easily obtainable data, provides the keys to bank accounts and credit cards.
Full Article: Political Horizons: Louisiana’s voter record firewall is low tech | Mark Ballard | theadvocate.com.