Indiana Secretary of State Connie Lawson says an array of steps have been taken to ensure the integrity of Indiana's election system spread out over 92 jurisdictions.

By BRIAN A. HOWEY



INDIANAPOLIS - Indiana Secretary of State Connie Lawson reassured Hoosier voters that Indiana’s election system has not been compromised by Russian hackers, saying it would be “next to impossible” for someone to invade and alter data in Indiana’s 92 election jurisdictions that could throw Nov. 8 outcomes into doubt.



‘We check every log in,” Lawson told Howey Politics Indiana on Friday, just hours after FBI Director James Comey urged states to make sure their are “deadbolt” locks on the system. “We’ve had 15 million log ins and we’ve checked every one,” Lawson said. “We have not had any from the URL that were in the FBI alert.”



On Wednesday, Comey told the House Judiciary Committee, “There have been a variety of scanning activities which is a preamble for potential intrusion activities as well as some attempted intrusions at voter database registrations beyond those we knew about in July and August. We are urging the states just to make sure that their deadbolts are thrown and their locks are on and to get the best information they can from DHS just to make sure their systems are secure.”



And Department of Homeland Security Sec. Jeh Johnson said that 18 states had requested cyber assistance from the federal government to prevent intrusions from what U.S. intelligence and congressional leaders say are hackers associated with the Russian government which is trying to discredit and disrupt the U.S. election system. Indiana is not one of those 18 states. Only two states, Illinois and Arizona, have actually been hacked.



Compounding the concern is that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has continually told his supporters that the “system is rigged,” casting further doubt about the integrity of a fair election.



“We have 92 election systems,” Lawson said of Indiana’s 92 counties. “We have five different voting systems. None of them are on the internet and none of them are networked together. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but with 9,000 election systems in the United States, I’m saying it is next to impossible” that the Nov. 8 election would be discredited or disrupted.



Lawson said that a reason Indiana has not joined the 18 states seeking federal assistance is “we have worked with the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the Federal Election Commission, the Department of Justice. We have engaged our vendors and our system managers.”



Lawson added that when someone goes into the state or county system to register to vote, what they’re seeing is “a mirror of the data base.” She said that the information isn’t entered in for 10 days, allowing the state to check the validity of the person. She added that there are continual audits and checks for anomalies. Officials also match up the number of voters on polling lists with those on individual polling machines.



“The last thing we want is for anyone to think they have a reason not to show up or that their vote won’t count,” said Lawson, who as secretary of state is Indiana’s chief elections officer.



Lawson noted that in a Sept. 28 letter from Congressional leaders Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to the National Association of State Election Directors, they were told, “The states face the challenge of malefactors that are seeking to use cyberattacks to disrupt the administration of our elections. We use the state stop take full advantage of the robust public and private sector resources available to them to endure that their network infrastructure is secure from attack. For over 200 years the states have overcome every challenge to ensure the smooth function of our democracy. We trust that you will take the steps necessary to meet the new challenges of the 21st Century by securing your election systems from cyberattacks.”



