PEKIN, Ill. — The Tazewell County Clerk’s Office was set Friday to publicly test its election equipment, approximately a week and a half ahead of the state primary elections.
The state-mandated public test was to be conducted by Liberty Systems, LLC of Tremont.
In light of the 2016 Russian hacking incidents, Clerk John Ackerman said he hopes public tests like these help to put minds at ease when it comes to the security of votes.
“The vote, itself, is absolutely secured from any electronic hacking, because it’s all done offline. It’s not done electronically,” he said.
“What [the Russians] hacked was voter information, not results.”
The office has been riding high on approximately $72,000 worth of CyberNavigator funding it’s received over the past year to shore up the voter database to prevent against attacks like the one Ackerman mentioned.
“The few aspects that are electronic — the transmission of results from our office to Springfield — is all done now on a new, secured network, provided for by the State of Illinois.”
A live stream of the equipment testing will be available at 1470WMBD on Facebook.
