California invested heavily in a secure election

The issue of hacker-proof election security is something I track closely and the site Axios offers cybersecurity coverage via email on the Axios Codebook. Tuesday’s email carried a great post on how the state of California went above and beyond when it comes to securing the vote, making Republican claims about voter fraud or shenanigans false. The bottom line is California spends about $7 per resident to make sure our elections and our votes are secure and true.

The entire report is worth sharing, so here is this morning’s CodeBook post:

Most states can’t afford the complete election system overhauls security experts believe they need. But California has budgeted for election cybersecurity at a level most states could never manage without federal funding.

The big picture: California’s elections are what those in every state could look like, with enough money.

What they’re saying: “Secretaries of state know what the recommendations and best practices are — paper ballots, post election audits — we know all of those things,” says California Secretary of State Alex Padilla. “But states and local governments need the resources to implement it.”

The investment: Per the secretary of state’s office:

The state of California allocated $134 million for new voting machines. With a dollar for dollar match from local governments, that’s nearly $270 million.
California also spent $3 million on an Office of Elections Cybersecurity.

That’s about $7 a Californian on top of an election system that this year already abided by the most universal recommendations for running a safe election — ballots that leave a paper trail and auditing to make sure machines are working as intended.

The new funding for machines isn’t solely about security. It’s also about machines at the end of their working lives.
Much of the voting infrastructure in the U.S. was purchased during the last wave of federal funding under the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) in 2002.
Age is a factor in many of the machine that malfunction. It might not be a hacker changing your vote; it might just be the ravages of time.

The national government did pass legislation before the election to distribute leftover HAVA funds to states for election cybersecurity. But there wasn’t much.

California received $34 million — less than $1 a person and nowhere near enough to do the type of machinery overhaul planned with state funds.

California’s Office of Election Cybersecurity was a platform to head off misinformation about voting procedures and polling places — social media versions of the old dirty trick of sending people to the wrong polling place or giving them the wrong instructions.

The state monitored social media, flagging around 276 posts with false or misleading information; 272 were taken down.
The office advertised on social media to provide accurate information about voting.
It also allowed Padilla to directly email correct information, including how to check registration status, to all California residents with email addresses on file.

Emailing residents is a why-doesn’t-everyone-do-this type of move. “We are now the one official reliable source of information about the election,” says Padilla.

In California, where there appears to have been the most voters in a midterm since 1982, it provided a second benefit: The rate people called voter help hotlines to find out where to vote decreased.
That’s two wins in most secretaries of state’s books — more voters with an easier time voting.

The bottom line: Any state with leaders who honestly aim to maximize security and voter participation could implement all of this, for a price. But the mandate to strengthen the election system, given by everyone from The Incredible Hulk to the vice president, is still unfunded.

“If it was easy for states to do, then it’d be done already,” says Padilla.

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