Amid national concerns over election security, Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill has said that Alabama has been a target for potential system breaches.
During an interview with 1819 PAC, Merrill said that his office has worked closely with Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA) to prevent “inevitable” attacks. In doing so, he confirmed that the Yellowhammer State has faced many attempted breaches, though details on who the identity of the attackers or where they originate from are few.
“We have continued to work with our vendors to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to preserve the integrity and credibility of the voter registration system, which will preserve the integrity and credibility of the election system,” Merrill said. “We continually check with our provider to see if there have been any breaches. We have had several attempted breaches that we don’t know where they came from — if they’re domestic or international — but we’ve not had anything that has compromised the system yet.”
In September, Jeet Gupta, a scholar with the University of Alabama Huntsville, told WHNT News that he believed election tampering is becoming more of a reality.
“We are becoming quite smart in protecting our systems, that nobody can hack,” Gupta told the station. “But as we are advancing in the technology and the know-how and the software that we use to be able to do that, hackers are also advancing, because they know the information technology as much, if not more, than the people who develop the information technology.”
Though alarms have sounded over “rigged” elections across the country, Merrill is working to assure voters that he and other Alabama officials are staying ahead of security concerns.
“I remain confident that our system is strong,” Merrill said in a statement. “We will continue to review our systems to ensure that we do not allow any personal data or election results to ever be compromised in this way.”
Don’t miss out! Subscribe today to have Alabama’s leading headlines delivered to your inbox.