‘Multiple layers of safeguards’: Election experts talk about the behind-the-scenes work of ensuring fair elections in Forsyth County

Featured photo: A town hall discussion with cybersecurity experts, election law attorneys and election officials at UNCSA’s Gerald Freedman Theater. From left to right: Former mayor of Charlotte Jennifer Roberts, chief risk officer for the State of North Carolina and former chief information security officer at NCSBE Torry Crass, cybersecurity expert & professor at UNC-Greensboro Dr. Stephen Tate, member of Forsyth County Board of Elections Catherine Jourdan, elections director for Forsyth County Tim Tsujii, member of Forsyth County Board of Elections Adam Draper and election law attorney Marshall Hurley. (Photo by Gale Melcher)

From the specific weight of the paper ballots to having multiple copies of the results, intricate measures are taken to ensure free and fair elections in the US.

On May 7, cybersecurity experts, election law attorneys and election officials hailing from both sides of the aisle sat down to talk about the behind-the-scenes work of ensuring fair elections in the UNC School of the Arts Gerald Freedman Theater in Winston-Salem. Hosted by FOX8 WGHP anchor Bob Buckley, the town hall event also featured former NC Supreme Court justice Bob Orr and former mayor of Charlotte Jennifer Roberts.

“There’s so many in America today who think that this idea of people being in charge and having fair and free elections is just an organic thing that happens,” Buckley said. “But it doesn’t.”

Throughout human history, freedom has been a “rare” occurrence, while tyranny is the “rule,” said Adam Draper, a local attorney and Forsyth County Board of Elections member. 

The US is an experiment in that freedom, said Draper.

Getting involved in the election process is one way to help protect it, said Catherine Jourdan, another board of elections member.

“If you don’t get involved, you don’t have much of a say-so over what happens,” she said. 

What protections exist for elections?

“It’s people; it’s processes,” explained Dr. Stephen Tate, cybersecurity expert and UNCG professor at the event. “For something like elections, what we want is not necessarily the most advanced technology that people don’t understand, but the most understandable and trustworthy technology that people believe is the safe one.”

In North Carolina, voters use paper ballots, and ballot counters — or vote tabulators — are not connected to the internet.

In Tate’s work, he looks at individual devices that are part of a larger system.

“The larger system includes the people that run the elections, the processes that people follow, and the more I’ve looked into North Carolina elections the more impressed I am with the way that there are layers.” 

It’s about applying a layer of protections to those technology devices, explained Torry Crass, NC’s chief risk officer and former chief information security officer at NCSBE.

“There are multiple layers of safeguards as it relates to cybersecurity and the voting systems,” he said.

Before each election, all of the voting equipment must be tested. After the election, officials are required by state law to randomly audit two precincts, counting the votes to make sure that the numbers line up. The random audits are chosen at the state level, and a “literal, physical dice gets rolled to determine who ends up getting audited,” Crass said. If nothing unusual pops up, the certification process can move forward.

According to Crass, local resources and funding availability plays a significant role in election security. 

“We’ve got to have encryption where encryption is possible, we have to have good antivirus malware detection, we have to have good backups,” he said. “We have to have all of these different things that create an entire ecosystem around elections to help protect that. And it’s not inexpensive.”

And while their system is pretty impenetrable due to how much money they kick into these kinds of safeguards, they still don’t have enough to invest in all the security measures they would like to do, Crass added.

What happens to your ballot behind the scenes?

Your ballot travels through multiple layers of safeguards — before it even reaches your hands — explained Tim Tsujii, the elections director for Forsyth County. 

First, it’s printed by a vendor that’s been certified through the state board elections on a paper stock with a specific weight. 

“If you were trying to attempt to counterfeit that paper ballot, you would have to know the exact specification of that weight of the paper ballot,” Tsujii explained. Ballot scanners also take a picture of your paper ballot. From there, your ballot drops into a bin that is sealed with a special security seal, Tsujii said. If election officials notice that the seal has been tampered with, they’ll immediately contact the board of elections. And it’s not just one individual handling everything; it’s a bipartisan group of trained precinct officials. 

Ballot scanners, also known as vote tabulators, are not connected to the internet, but at some point election officials will need to transfer those results to a network device in order to broadcast them on their website.

They copy the results using a thumb drive — which is never used twice, because it has “touched a network device,” Tsujii said.

These thumb drives are not the kind you can buy at the store; they’re special and “extremely expensive” — about $100 a pop — Crass added. 

One person brings in the thumb drive along with the first copy of the results on a tape to the board of elections office. Then the chief judge brings the second copy of the results and the ballots, so that “nobody can claim or make that argument that one sole individual maintained possession of everything,” Tsujii affirmed. He explained that by having the chief judge follow suit with the second copy of the results, they can “verify that the results matched on election night.”

“Our system in Forsyth County is not really hackable, because tabulators are not connected to the internet,” Jourdan chimed in.

What people are truly worried about is fraud occurring on a massive scale, and that thousands of votes are being changed, Jourdan added.

While it’s totally possible for someone to pretend to be another person and fraudulently cast their ballot, it’s only a few cases — “nothing that’s really going to overturn an election,” Jourdan noted.

With threats such as voter intimidation, physical security is another thing they have to keep in mind, Tsujii explained. They have a local emergency services taskforce that’s specific to elections and they have pre-election briefings with law enforcement agencies. Tsujii added that police and fire leadership are on his speed dial should something go wrong.

Draper explained that despite some people’s fears of widespread election fraud, he is “not seeing people show up and say, ‘I didn’t get to vote because somebody else has already claimed my ballot.’”

“My concern is really more misinformation and paranoia out there and how much it gets spread. To me, that’s a bigger problem, in our county anyhow,” Jourdan said.

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