Bonneville County residents fill out their ballots during the May 21, 2024, primary election at The Waterfront Event Center in Idaho Falls. (Pat Sutphin for the Idaho Capital Sun)
Idaho officials are taking steps to strengthen the state’s election security.
At a press conference on Wednesday morning, Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane met with federal officials from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, at the Idaho State Capitol in Boise to highlight the partnership between the two agencies.
Established in 2018, CISA is the country’s newest federal agency. It was established after Russian attempts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, which led to election infrastructure being designated as critical infrastructure, CISA director Jen Easterly said at the conference.
“We’re America’s cyber defense agency, and we’re the national coordinator for critical infrastructure security and resilience,” Easterly said. “We protect and defend the systems that Americans rely on every hour of every day, for health care, water, power, transportation, communication, and those systems that Americans use to cast their ballots and to ensure that those ballots are counted.”
While elections are not run by the federal government, CISA serves to provide state and local governments with cybersecurity support ahead of elections with no cost cybersecurity assessments and training.
“We’ve done a lot of work over the last 20 years — but in particular over the last four years — to continue to build the infrastructure of the system that we have so that Idahoans, when they head to the polls, can have absolute confidence that their vote will count and that nobody is tampering with the systems that we have here in our state,” McGrane said.
Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane (right), with Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency director Jen Easterly to the left, speaks at a press conference about the importance that local, state and federal partnerships play in the upcoming election at the Idaho State Capitol in Boise on Sept. 18, 2024. (Mia Maldonado/Idaho Capital Sun)
Foreign interference is a top concern for election officials
A major concern for U.S. officials is the potential for election interference by foreign adversaries from Iran, Russia and China.
“We know (they) are very intent on doing two things: undermining American confidence in the security of our election and in our democracy, and trying to stoke partisan rancor and discord,” Easterly said.
There have been no specific attempts from foreign groups to interfere in Idaho elections, McGrane said, adding that one of the country’s greatest strengths is its diffuse election system that makes every state conduct its own elections.
Another key security feature of the nation’s election system is that the systems used by Americans to cast their votes are not connected to the internet, Easterly said.
“I have high, high, high confidence that actors would not be able to hack into election infrastructure to change votes,” she said. “I do not think that that is a real threat at all, but I think we have to recognize that our foreign adversaries may attempt to make Americans believe that.”
Easterly said she recognizes there is skepticism about the security of U.S. elections, and she encourages skeptics to get more involved by becoming poll workers or connecting with local election officials.
“It really will take all of us to protect and preserve our democracy from very serious foreign adversaries,” she said.
Rural Idaho face greater election challenges with limited resources
In addition to foreign involvement, risks to Idahoans casting their vote are faced by those mostly in rural communities, McGrane said.
Idaho GOP says more than a dozen ‘vote no on Prop 1’ signs vandalized
Wildfires, power outages, limited cell service and even the absence of one information technology worker can hinder a rural county’s election efficiency. By working with CISA, McGrane said he hopes to provide more resources to those areas.
Other risks to Idaho elections include the possibility of active shootings and the rise of political violence, McGrane said.
“I think a perfect example of that locally is the damage to yard signs,” McGrane said.
This week, the Idaho Republican Party said more than a dozen signs in opposition to the Proposition 1 ballot initiative had been vandalized.
“The vandalism – it feels small, but as things escalate, as the political tensions rise, both nationally and locally, I think one of the things we all need to be mindful of is that an important part of our democratic process is having a voice at the ballot box,” McGrane said.
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