Hacker claim puzzles state election chiefs

Officials say no evidence backs Nelson’s claim about Russians

South Florida election chiefs said Thursday they have no reason to believe their voter registration rolls have been compromised by hackers, despite comments from Sen. Bill Nelson that Russians have gained access to some Florida counties’ systems.

Broward County Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes said she has not received any special alerts from Nelson or the federal government.

“We have had absolutely no information regarding that,” she said Thursday. “We have not seen anything with our system that something strange is going on.”

State officials also say they have no information to support Nelson’s claim.

Nelson, the ranking member of the cyber subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Wednesday that Russian operatives

have penetrated some of the state’s election systems ahead of this year’s midterms.

“They have already penetrated certain counties in the state and they now have free rein to move about,” Nelson told the Tampa Bay Times.

Nelson, who is running for re-election, declined to identify which counties have been penetrated, saying it was classified. “The threat is real and elections officials — at all levels — need to address the vulnerabilities.”

Election officials in Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties also said they are not aware of their systems being compromised.

Susan Bucher, supervisor of elections for Palm Beach County, said her office has been working diligently to ensure systems are safe on Election Day.

Employees have undergone training, and the county’s system has been repeatedly tested for vulnerabilities. “We are confident we have done as much as we can,” Bucher said.

Snipes said she too has conducted additional training and monitoring in response to the threat.

Counties are receiving $15.5 million in funding to make investments in election security prior to this year’s midterms. Republican Gov. Rick Scott’s office says more than $14.5 million has been distributed to date, including $3.7 million that went to Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. Nelson, a Democrat, is facing an election challenge from Scott.

“I am going to do everything I can to make sure that we don’t have any impact on our elections,” Scott said during a campaign stop in Boca Raton last month.

Nearly $2 million will be used to purchase a network monitoring security system that provides automated alerts about threats, the Florida State Department said.

Nelson and his Republican colleague, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who is on the Senate intelligence committee, wrote a letter last month to Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner, who is in charge of the state’s division of elections.

The July 2 letter warned election officials that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence found that “Russia was preparing to undermine confidence in our voting process” and urged them to take advantage of federal resources. It noted that in a small number of cases “cyber actors affiliated with the Russian government accessed voter registration databases.” The letter did not detail a specific infiltration of any of Florida’s systems.

Nelson said a concern exists that hackers could start eliminating registered voters.

“You can imagine the chaos that would occur on Election Day when the voters get to the polls and they say: ‘I’m sorry, Mr. Smith. I’m sorry, Mr. Jones, you’re not registered.’ That’s exactly what the Russians want to do,” Nelson said.

The Florida Department of State said it had received “zero information” from Nelson or his staff that supports the claims of Russian meddling — something national intelligence and homeland security officials have repeatedly warned was

“We have not seen anything with our system that something strange is going on.” Brenda Snipes, Broward elections supervisor

likely ahead of the midterms.

“Additionally, the department has received no information from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the Florida Department of Law Enforcement that corroborates Sen. Nelson’s statement and we have no evidence to support these claims,” the Florida Department of State said in a statement obtained by The Associated Press. “If Sen. Nelson has specific information about threats to our elections, he should share it with election officials in Florida.”

Okaloosa Supervisor of Elections Paul Lux, who is president of the state’s association of election supervisors, said 37 of the state’s 67 county election supervisors he received responses from indicated they had received no word of a specific threat or breach to their system.

One issue, he said, is election supervisors are not able to get security clearances that would allow them to receive briefings on classified information.

“If the federal government has actionable intelligence and we don’t have access to that intelligence, you can’t be surprised that we can’t take the actions necessary to respond to those threats,” Lux said.

Only election supervisors in Escambia and Clay counties have been granted an interim clearance because they sit on a government coordinating council, he said. Officials with the Florida Department of State also have clearances, an agency spokeswoman said.

Sara Sendek, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, issued a statement Wednesday evening saying: “While we are aware of Senator Nelson’s recent statements, we have not seen any new compromises by Russian actors of election infrastructure. That said, we don’t need to wait for a specific threat to be ready.”

Rubio and Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., the chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, declined to comment.

White House critics have harshly criticized President Donald Trump on the issue of election security. They say his administration lacks a clear national strategy to protect U.S. elections from foreign meddling by Russia or any other adversary. In response, top national security officials appeared together at the White House last week to insist there is a “vast, government-wide effort” to safeguard a cornerstone of American democracy.

John Bolton, the national security adviser, wrote in a letter to Senate Democrats that “President Trump has not and will not tolerate interference in America’s system of representative government.”