Group sues for records on US election hacking vulnerability
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A voting security advocacy group is trying to force a leader of a state election officials association to release documents on whether she wrongly asserted that U.S. election systems are safe from hacking.
The National Election Defense Coalition filed a lawsuit Thursday against Indiana Secretary of State Connie Lawson alleging she’s violated state law in denying public record requests since September for her communications about election security with the National Association of Secretaries of State. Lawson was the bipartisan association’s 2017-18 president and is currently co-chair of its cybersecurity committee.
The coalition argues that Lawson’s public statements have downplayed the vulnerability of election systems. It pointed to her testimony for a 2017 U.S. Senate intelligence committee hearing on Russian interference in the 2016 election during which she said it was “very important to underscore that voting machines are not connected to the internet or networked in any way.”
Officials in at least four states — Florida, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin — have certified election equipment that includes wireless modems, according to the coalition. Such vulnerabilities are among the election security issues that the federal government and states have struggled with since the 2016 election, tangled by partisan fighting and the intricacies of state-run election systems.
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