New questions emerged this week over the security of the voting process after hackers apparently gained access to voter databases in two states, stealing information in one.
Pennsylvania election officials say they’re taking every possible step to keep the voting process — and the voter database — secure.
In Dauphin County, voting regulators say there won’t be any problems with their ballot machines come Election Day.
The devices (about 500 of them throughout the county) are 31 years old.
“It’s very simple 1980s technology,” said Jerry Feaser, director of Dauphin County’s Bureau of Registration and Elections. He considers that a good thing.
“That means there’s no ability to hack into these machines and alter the results,” he said.
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Each one has a cartridge — specific to the machine — that records results. It attaches through a series of pin connectors.
“As you can see, it’s not a USB port or any other type of connection that would be something that most people would have access to,” Feaser said.
Plus, the only plug into the device is the power cord; the Pennsylvania Department of State doesn’t allow voting machines to connect to the internet.
And that’s where this latest hack came from: elections officials in Illinois and Arizona said someone gained access to their state voter databases.
In Illinois, the hackers may have made off with information on up to 200,000 voters, including their names, addresses and birth dates — all attractive information for someone trying to steal money.
In Pennsylvania, it’s easier than that.
All of that is public information in Pennsylvania. Just a few clicks on the State Department’s website brings users to a page prompting them to buy a public database of every registered voter.
Fill out a few pieces of information, pay the $20, and anyone can download lists of information organized by county. The data, which is useful for campaigns looking to target specific voter demographics, include names, sex, birth dates, addresses, party affiliation and even some phone numbers.
Changing that data is a different hurdle. Illinois officials say it doesn’t appear anything was altered in their system, but some security analysts say it’s more likely the hackers just wanted the information about voters.
One more piece of information the Illinois hackers may have gotten from some of the voters — the last four digits of their social security numbers, something not included in the public records in this state.
The Pennsylvania State Department said in a news release Tuesday they’re talking with U.S. Homeland Security to assess security risks, both to the database and to the voting process.
It follows a conference call with the national agency in which officials there offered states their assistance in double-checking election cyber-security.
The voting machines run their own security tests, Feaser said, before elections, putting the data cartridges through the motions to make sure no one’s tampered with it. If someone has election watchers, call the Feaser’s office.
“But I’ve never had this situation occur because all these machines go out with zero votes recorded on them,” he said. “There’s no way you can manipulate this machine without one of the triggered safeguards alerting someone to the fact that something may be wrong with this machine.”
Even if someone managed to alter the votes, Feaser said, there are so many people from both parties watching over the process. Rigging an election would take a lot of coordination between people who have no reason to coordinate.
“That’s why we have local elected election boards made up of the judge of elections, inspectors of election, clerks of election, the machine operators. We have poll watchers.”

