Missourians’ votes next week should be safe from hacking or other cyber-security issues, Gov. Mike Parson and Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft told reporters Thursday morning.
But they’re not relaxing their efforts to keep things safe.
“If you’re registered to vote, you can vote — and your vote will count,” Ashcroft told reporters in Parson’s Capitol office. “Your vote will make a difference.”
Ashcroft said his office has been working for more than a year with state and federal officials, “and with third-party computer experts … to increase the effectiveness of deterring individual who would try to interfere with our elections.”
That includes trying to “thwart disinformation and disinformation campaigns,” he said.
Ashcroft said Missouri officials have taken a “holistic approach” to ensuring the security of electronic voting machines.
“What I want all the people of the state to know is, under Missouri law, there must be a paper record of every vote,” he explained. “There are required audits after the election — there is a real, physical audit trail.”
Some people told legislative committees in recent years that some of the paper tapes used to record the votes from electronic voting machines had jammed during an election, and didn’t save the required information.
But Maura Browning, Ashcroft’s spokeswoman, told the News Tribune on Thursday afternoon: “Voting machines are required to be publicly tested by local election authorities both before and after every election.
“Every electronic machine has a paper audit trail,” and problems like those noted during Capitol hearings are handled “by the local election officials and their technical support teams.”
Ashcroft said state and local election officials monitor the computer equipment on a regular basis and are aware of around “100,000 scans of our network every day. That’s standard.”
Those electronic contacts are treated as if they’re a malicious attempt to get into the computer systems — and they have not been successful, he said.
“We deal with those every day,” he added. “There is no evidence of any votes potentially being changed.
“There is no evidence of any (voter) registrations being changed.”
Parson told reporters: “All Missourians need to be diligent and alert, and prepared to defend against evolving cyber-crime. This is an important issue for more than just one month in the year.
“With the upcoming election next Tuesday, our team will be available to aid and assist Secretary Ashcroft and the secretary of state’s office in providing a secure election to our citizens.”
Both Ashcroft and Parson said Missourians should be confident in the election process.
Ashcroft said Missouri is using a $7.2 million federal grant for “upgrades to our (statewide) voter registration system,” and for providing greater security to local election officials, “with an emphasis on our smaller jurisdictions, that may not have the IT capability that the state of Missouri and the secretary of state’s office has.”