LA Country Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan explains how his agency is guarding against malicious cyber-intrusions

Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan today provided the following statement to Etopia News regarding his agency’s policies designed to protect the integrity of its voter databases and the voting process itself:

“We are aware of and closely monitoring response to the recent intrusions into out-of-state voter registration databases and election-related websites.  While we do not have evidence of any specific threats identified targeting our local systems, it is clear that we live in a time where we have to be vigilant in filtering and monitoring all of our public sector databases and public facing applications to guard against intrusion or disruption.

“Los Angeles County works closely with – and follows the guidance of – the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, the Secretary of State, our local information technology community and third-party cyber security experts to ensure that our security protocols are appropriate and that antivirus, anti-malware services are updated and patched on a real-time basis.

“The out-of-state breaches have been voter database related.  The systems and equipment used for casting, counting and reporting votes are independent of those databases and are physically and technically isolated from other systems.  And, ultimately, the official record of votes is the tangible paper-based ballot that can be used for auditing and recounts.

“Our priority is to ensure that voters personal information and data is safeguarded and that the opportunity to cast a ballot securely and independently is maintained.”  

The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has offered to provide technical assistance to the states to protect their voting systems, and has suggested that it might want to designate such systems as "critical infrastructure" in order to facilitate the provision of such technical support.