We are a little more than a month away from the Midterm Elections and after the lies about a stolen election in 2020, issues surrounding the integrity of elections have been amplified.
It was Donald Trump, who won the presidency in 2016 when election infrastructure was designated as part of the nation’s critical infrastructure.
“Of course, 2020 was really a whole other animal compared to 2016 and raised the level of awareness and concern. And as a top priority for elections that you know we really review our security and cyber security precautions,” said Tommy Gong, Contra Costa County’s chief deputy clerk recorder.
Now, Contra Costa County is getting help from the FBI for the Nov. 8 elections and the San Francisco office said it’s also in heightened-alert mode.
Get a weekly recap of the latest San Francisco Bay Area housing news. Sign up for NBC Bay Area’s Housing Deconstructed newsletter.
“What we’ll usually see is we’ll see hackers scanning county election websites right like either the county clerk website or county registrars offices and we’re seeing an average amount,” said Elvis Chan from the FBI’s SF Cyber Branch.
Chan said that while that may sound like no big deal, part of that is fighting disinformation.
“What we are seeing a little bit of and I was expecting more of and maybe, we will see more of is deep fakes,” said Chan.
Those are false, but realistic, clips created with artificial intelligence.
All which makes it logical to share information among all sectors – public and private – in an attempt to squash the erosion of trust now here for some Americans.
“It does concern us because what it is is we want to have as high of a turnout as we can with our voters,” said Gong. “The higher the participation is then the more representative.”
Ballots are due out starting next week.
Elections officials said that those that already made their decisions should go ahead and vote early -- just make sure to sign your envelope.
