Election officials discuss threats to election security

Secretaries of State from Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri and South Dakota joined Jen Easterly, the national director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, to learn about domestic and foreign risks to election security.

The group met at the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology and Education Center at the University of Nebraska-Omaha Wednesday.

Easterly said her agency is monitoring potential cybersecurity threats from Russia, Iran and China, but she has “tremendous confidence” in the integrity of American elections.

“Power could go out, somebody will forget a key to a polling place so it opens late, there could be a ransomware attack on an election office,” she said. “The good news is these disruptions, while problematic, will not affect how votes are counted and how votes are cast.”

Easterly said the agency has provided physical and cybersecurity training to tens of thousands of election workers nationwide.

Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnen said each ballot counting machine in the state is tested at least three times prior to election day and county election websites are monitored weekly for vulnerabilities to cyberattacks.

He encouraged citizens concerned with election security to volunteer as election workers themselves to see the process firsthand.

“Go be a poll worker. Go be an election observer. Find out how you get to do those things and go watch this process happen and see what you think and draw your own conclusions about it,” Evnen said.

Early in-person voting began in Nebraska earlier this week.