“We play a huge role in election security. We partner with our security organization. We helped them through the last election get to a new system. We provide the reporting. We do lots with security, partnering with organizations like the National Guard. Our teams are working around the clock during our election cycles, so we have a great relationship with our elections office. I’d say we look forward to it, but it’s going to be quite a challenge, particularly in Delaware. It’s a huge election cycle with many key races, and so it’s going to be quite an exciting time." — Greg Lane, CIO, Delaware
Government Technology/David Kidd
“Securing the network, and we always do the traditional election time freezes and change management freezes and that kind of stuff, that’s just par for the course in terms of how we prepare for an election, recognizing how sensitive that is. Now, of course, we’re turning our attention to things like deepfakes and misinformation, trying to counter that, trying to be out in front of that, so that we’re actively engaged and monitoring that kind of thing. But it’s such a new area. The threat actors are evolving at a rapid pace and they’re coming from all types of sources, from nation-states down to individuals. So it’s really hard to predict how this will go. But I guess the big change is that in the past we just kind of froze everything and were very careful and cautious, and now we’re actively observing what’s happening and trying to create countermeasures to that." — David Edinger, CIO, Colorado
Government Technology/David Kidd
“Our Secretary of State owns the elections process in our state and we support them from a network standpoint and we certainly provide resources to be available during elections. We help monitor the network and the traffic and whatnot, but we’re not directly involved in that, so more as a support organization." — Stephanie Dedmon, CIO, Tennessee
Government Technology/David Kidd
“In general, we don’t have a major footprint in election security, but we do have a big footprint in supporting our Secretary of State’s office. So our goal is to really make sure that they have the framework and security practices in place to support their back-office operations, some of the voter registration activities and things that they have to put in place, and to make sure that that’s one less thing for them to worry about while they focus on the voting machines and the voting activities that are going on in the districts across the state. Our goal is to be a good partner to the Secretary of State and that team and make sure that our infrastructure is in support of their goals and missions." — Tracy Barnes, CIO, Indiana
Government Technology/David Kidd
“In Alaska, the way that we’re organized, we’re a little bit unique in that our state Division of Elections covers elections statewide. We don’t have a county structure like many states do. … Very little of the elections process goes over our state network and quite frankly most of it is air gapped and very manual in nature. We have that flexibility because of the size of our voting population. So we don’t have a significant role in the execution of elections, but we do have a role in protecting the state government network as a whole, which helps protect the voter rolls and the registration software and things of that nature. And we’re certainly spending a lot of time working with the Division of Elections as well as our federal partners at CISA and other locations to really make sure that we’re ready for the season." — Bill Smith, CIO, Alaska
Government Technology/David Kidd
“We work very closely hand in hand with our Secretary of State’s office in securing the transport that election results are carried on. And of course trust in government hinges on people believing that the highways that those results are tabulated in are secure and safe and cannot be manipulated. In Minnesota we have a really robust election system and election laws, and we go through a lot of exercises collaboratively with all of the different polling places with our Secretary of State’s office as well as with [partners] at the federal level to make sure that we both exercise and then monitor and are really vigilant as it relates to protecting the digital components of our election processes." — Tarek Tomes, CIO, Minnesota
Noelle Knell is the executive editor for e.Republic, responsible for setting the overall direction for e.Republic’s editorial platforms, including Government Technology, Governing, Industry Insider, Emergency Management and the Center for Digital Education. She has been with e.Republic since 2011, and has decades of writing, editing and leadership experience. A California native, Noelle has worked in both state and local government, and is a graduate of the University of California, Davis, with majors in political science and American history.
Lauren Kinkade is the managing editor for Government Technology magazine. She has a degree in English from the University of California, Berkeley, and more than 15 years’ experience in book and magazine publishing.
