MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin election officials insist the state’s voting systems are safe from hackers as ballots are cast in Tuesday’s primary.
Intelligence gathered by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security indicates Russia targeted Wisconsin’s elections system in 2016. Nothing showed the system was compromised, however.
Wisconsin Elections Commission spokesman Reid Magney says that since 2016 the system has been encrypted, or converted to code.
He says the commission also has trained local clerks on cybersecurity measures. He adds that each clerk has a limited reach in the state system. If they inadvertently give a hacker access, perhaps by clicking on a strange email, the hacker couldn’t get very far.
Magney notes that vote-counting computers aren’t linked to the internet and the official vote counts are recorded on paper tape print-outs.
