Scott Powers
While maintaining what he’s said all along — Florida’s elections were not hacked in 2016 — Seminole County Elections Supervisor Mike Ertel is digging a “cyber moat” around voting systems to safeguard upcoming elections further.
“We felt we were in good shape,” Ertel said Monday. “Now we’re in great shape.”
Ertel has been among the more outspoken of county supervisors of elections defending the integrity and safety of Florida’s voting systems, based on paper ballots. Sunday he went to Facebook to send a message to Seminole County voters that his office is doing more.
And on Monday, he expressed confidence that his 66 colleagues in other Florida counties are doing the same, with the understanding that Florida, of all states, cannot screw up this election.
“In the elections business,” he said, “there can be zero mistakes, zero intrusions.”
The Seminole County Supervisor of Elections Office is spending a $300,000 federal grant to do everything from replacing servers that are more defensive against intrusions, to installing fingerprint keylocks on doors to any rooms with computers, ballots, or other sensitive materials or equipment. That’s on top money he said already was spent earlier this year and last year.
Ertel said parts of the new security systems have been in place for the past couple of elections, and now all are ready for the Aug. 28 primary and Nov. 6 general election.
Among the changes: no more USB ports on any Seminole County elections computers, so that nothing can be loaded into or out of the systems. New security cameras covering everything. New firewalls on anything that connects to the internet, or even to hardwires.
“We’re digging a cyber moat around the office, stopping any electronic intrusions, and physical ones,” he said.
On Sunday evening he told his office’s Facebook followers, in part:
“We cannot rest on past success, nor can we ignore the potential threat in the future. To that end, for the 2018 election cycle, we will be implementing the most rigorous and thorough defensive measures ever taken to combat the threats. The strategy is clear internally, and we’ve developed tactics which we believe will provide a best-in-class defense mechanism.
“Clearly I won’t be spelling out all of our defense tactics online, but you as a voter will see some welcome changes in this election cycle. Among the changes will be an all-new voting system which we rolled out in the 2017 elections, but will debut for the first time countywide this year. These systems combine the efficiency of secure technology, with the comfort of knowing every voter – every voter – will vote on a verifiable paper ballot. Paper ballots are trusted, auditable and recountable.
“Every voter at an early voting center and neighborhood-based polling place will be checked in and verified on the most recent and secure tablet technology, which is proctored by a highly trained poll worker who will also verify the identity of each voter face-to-face.”
