Security boosted in new voting machines

A recent Daily Herald story on the House Committee Homeland Security hearing reminds us of the need for unrelenting vigilance in protecting and defending our elections systems from hackers. Cook County, for one, has dedicated cybersecurity experts who constantly monitor our systems and work with partner agencies such as Homeland Security to combat these threats.

Our election equipment is another vital part of ensuring that voters have confidence in the voting process. Far from being "antiquated," as some of our nation's voting equipment was described in the story, when suburban Cook County voters go to the polls in the 2020 Presidential Primary, they will use all-new, state-of-the-art equipment.

Cook County's old voting machines, which reached the end of their natural life span years ago, are history. They've been decommissioned and disassembled. In 2018, the Cook County Board authorized $31 million to be spent on new equipment, which debuted in the 2019 Consolidated Elections in a successful pilot program in 147 precincts in three West suburban townships.

In 2020, these new machines will be in every suburban Cook County precinct.

Not only do these machines produce a paper trail of each vote, but they create a single sheet of paper for each ballot, a sheet that voters can hold in their hands and review, before the vote is fed by the voter into a tabulator (that is not connected to the internet). This will help voters ensure their votes are counted and will make any post-election audit more effective and efficient.

I want to assure the voters of Cook County that while the threats to our elections systems are real, and out there every day, so are our cybersecurity defenders. I take this issue very seriously, and my office will remain ever vigilant in protecting and defending our elections.

Karen A. Yarbrough

Cook County Clerk