Kane County gets state money for election security but can't make changes yet

Kane County officials will receive at least $70,000 from the state to boost election security ahead of Nov. 6 voting, but don't expect any big changes.

Roger Fahnestock, the county's chief information officer, said large changes to the existing system will not happen because that would cause more harm than good with so little time left to implement them.

The money is part of the state's Cyber Navigator Program, and election authorities must undergo a risk assessment through the state to ensure all best practices are in place before receiving the funds. Initially, it will be spent on improvements such as enhancing physical security at polling places, Fahnestock said.

Some election system changes have been made, including a new requirement to use the state's private network to transmit voter registration data.

In the past, such data could be sent to the state through the internet if it was encrypted. But an outside hack of the voter data at the state level fueled a different approach this election cycle. The state's system, known as the Illinois Century Network, has monitoring built in to detect any outside intrusion.

Those are positive changes, Fahnestock said, but they don't directly affect vote tabulation, which is what most voters seem to be spooked about. That concern is understandable, to a degree, because there is no such thing as a 100 percent unhackable system.

"That exists nowhere," Fahnestock said. "Not in anything. Ask Target. Ask Facebook. Ask any bank. They get hacked. They get manipulated. It happens."

Because of that, one of the next frontiers of election security may be less about preventing intrusion and more about dealing with the potential aftermath.

Fahnestock said there have been discussions among election authorities about the idea of cyber liability insurance. Such insurance could cover the cost of hosting a special election if authorities ruled results were so flawed the problems could be resolved only with another election.

Kane County voters should feel secure about the votes they cast this election, he said.

"The most important thing is having a judge from both parties present while things are going on," Fahnestock said. "It's very difficult for somebody to do anything too crazy while you have a judge from each party there and election staff. You'd have to have a lot of collusion to tamper with a machine."

He stressed that with the training, and physical and audit controls in place, and the verifiable paper trail, there's never been a discrepancy.