Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi, everyone. I'm Greg Harton, the editorial page editor of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette. Welcome to another edition of the Know the news podcast. Today we're going to talk about election security. So I'll be back in just a moment with more.
Well, today my guest is Jennifer Price. She is the executive director of the Washington County Election Commission. Thanks for joining us.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: You're welcome. I'm glad to be here.
[00:00:35] Speaker A: So the Washington County Election Commission is.
I mean, every county has one, right?
[00:00:43] Speaker B: That is correct. Yeah. There's, it's a three person panel, two Republicans, one Democrat. And that ratio is set by the constitution, and it is dependent on the amount of constitutional offices held by which political party.
[00:00:58] Speaker A: So, like the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general. So all of those are republican today. And so Republicans get two positions on each of the 75 election commissions in the state, and Democrats have one person.
[00:01:11] Speaker B: That is correct.
[00:01:12] Speaker A: Okay.
So. And that's to allow the two major parties to essentially be involved and feel, I guess, good about elections, that they are directly involved in the operation of them.
[00:01:28] Speaker B: That's correct. So the election commission is responsible for everything that you see on election day, you know, approving the ballots, determining the polling location, assigning poll workers, of certifying the election. So all of those functions are part of the election commission. And in larger counties, such as Washington County, Benton County, Pulaski County, Sebastian, and those counties, they have a dedicated election director or coordinator, which is what I do.
[00:01:58] Speaker A: And your job when you go to work every day is to essentially ensure that we have smooth and secure elections?
[00:02:08] Speaker B: Absolutely. I mean, we start the process from start to finish. In Washington county, we're responsible for every part of the election. We don't send anything off to have programmed for us or created for us. So we create the ballots here in Washington county, we test everything, train all the poll workers, find the polling locations and early vote sites, and then, of course, election night, we make sure that our counts are accurate, that we're open and transparent to the public so they can see every aspect of the election, and then, of course, certifying the election at the end.
[00:02:44] Speaker A: So the reason I'm talking to you today is Tom Sissom, our reporter who covers Washington county, is working on a story about election security.
And some of the, I don't know if it's warnings or just advising that you guys have gotten about election security from federal and state officials or that just kind of gives you an idea of what's lingering out there, what possibilities there are in terms of, I guess you would call them bad actors out there who want to kind of mess with our elections or want to disrupt or potentially. And all of this is potential, I guess.
Tell me a little bit about the conversations that are going on right now about election security.
[00:03:38] Speaker B: So one of the big questions we always answer before any election is how secure is our voting equipment? You know, questions about the voting equipment being hooked up to the Internet, transmitting results through the Internet is a lingering question that we've answered since 2016. And, you know, we want to assure the voters that the voting equipment, the DS 200, which is your ballot box that you put your ballot in after you finish voting, the express vote, which is just a fancy marking device where you create your paper ballot, that's the.
[00:04:13] Speaker A: Thing that I stand in when I go to the polling place and actually mark them.
[00:04:17] Speaker B: Yes, that's where you're marking, making your decisions on which candidate or issue to vote for. Those two pieces of equipment, plus the equipment that we use to actually create the ballots, are never hooked up to the Internet. Our computers are hardened. They're not even capable of hooking up to the Internet. And the pieces of equipment don't have any type of modem in them, don't have any way to connect to the Internet. So from that standpoint, we know that those pieces of equipment are secure, that when we load the election onto the express vote, the marking device, and that when the ballots are put into the DS 200 and counted, that there isn't an outside entity that can hack into or connect to those pieces of equipment. We also know, because we do our own in house programming, that that computer is never hooked up to the Internet. So we're, you know, safe and secure in that sense right there. So we want to assure the voters, you know, all of that. But we also, you know, talk about logic and accuracy testing, and that's where voters have the opportunity to come to a public test and they can look at all of these pieces of equipment. They can look how we test them. You know, we can visit with them about how secure it is and how they actually are counting, and then we certify those results. So from that end, you know, we've been kind of talking about that since 2016, which is when we got this new system of voting. The other side of it has to do with, you know, counties, not necessarily direct threats against the election commissions, but what would happen to the election department if a county server was to have some sort of malware attack or ransom attack, that type of thing? Like, what would we do? How do we adjust to those types of things? And then also potential threats of AI. You know, voters may be receiving robocalls that actually sound like they're from a candidate and asking for their vote, those types of things. So we want to be aware of all of that. You know, we've not received any direct threats or concerns, but we would be very remiss if we didn't prepare for those types of situations and have answers for our voters. You know, we know they're concerned. We understand those concerns that we have, and we want to make sure that we are putting in their minds that it is a safe, secure election. And when they go and vote for candidate a, it will result in a vote for candidate a.
[00:06:59] Speaker A: So here in Arkansas, I mean, there's been a movement of a group to essentially go back to paper ballots, which I know that our electronic system has paper ballots that are then fed into a machine that does the physical, the electronic counting of them.
But this group has suggested that really the only way to keep a. An election secure is to more or less go back to the way we used to do things, which, you know, marking a paper ballot with a pen or a pencil or something like that. I mean, is that necessary to have security?
[00:07:42] Speaker B: I think that the system that Arkansas has in place right now, which is across all 75 counties, is a secure system. What we've done is we've replaced that pre printed paper ballot, which has the ovals in it that you, that you fill in with the fancy marking device, which is the express vote.
And so for voters, when they go and mark their ballot on the express vote, it does return a ballot that they can see their choices. Now it is reading the barcode when it reads into the DS 200.
[00:08:14] Speaker A: This is the current system.
[00:08:15] Speaker B: This is the current system that we have.
But that current system that is reading those barcodes would be the same system we would use on a pre printed paper ballot where you filled in the ovals. That's just a scantron. And so it would actually work the same where it reads in that information as well, not from the name that's printed on the ballot, but from the oval placement that's printed on the ballot. So that's one of the things, too, that we have in our office. If voters want to see how that, how that system works, we have information on that where we can show you from when we program the ballot that the placement of the barcodes on the ballot and the information in those barcodes is actually the same information that is on those pre printed paper ballots. And so we can show them the correlation between the two, and how it does count accurately. One of the things that having the express vote voting equipment allows us is to do vote centers and have early voting. Right now, we have about 65% of our votes that are cast early so that lines aren't as long on election day and voters can vote at any location across the county. When we go to looking at pre printed paper ballots, which is what we had previously, we were having to do precinct based voting, which meant voters were assigned a polling location. And so we like the flexibility of being able to offer voters the opportunity to vote at any location. And we think that makes voting more accessible for voters.
[00:09:57] Speaker A: So the.
Well, let me ask this real quick. So Arkansas uses this system, but not every state uses that system, is that right?
[00:10:07] Speaker B: Yeah. So it is interesting, and we answer this question quite a bit, is voters will see a story on the news, the national news, and they will equate that with, well, that must be occurring in Arkansas. Because you look at an elections, especially when we're talking about presidential elections and those are a federal election, the assumption can be made that will all states operate exactly the same. But you have 50 states with 50 different systems, 50 different ways of offering early voting, in person voting, absentee voting, mail in voting. So that varies across the United States. So Arkansas, the system that we have is across all the counties. So within Washington or within the state of Arkansas, every county operates exactly the same. So it's important for voters, you know, when you're looking at how do elections work, go to local resources, look at your local newspaper, your local tv stations, visit with your election commission. We are always more than happy sign up to be a poll worker and that will tell you exactly how it's being done in your county where you're casting your vote.
[00:11:20] Speaker A: So how comfortable are you with, I mean, I think I'm certainly sensing that you're very comfortable with the way that Washington county is doing it and across the state with the equipment we have. But so much of the discussion about vulnerabilities and all these are national discussions. So how comfortable are you that, that nationally we are protecting ourselves and our democratic process?
[00:11:51] Speaker B: So I think we are. I think always when you're looking at news stories online or watching tv stations, they're always going to lead with the story that, where something happened.
And so I look at a website, it's called election line, and it tells stories from across the United States in regards to elections. And it's done at a local level. So you're not getting a story that's from a national newspaper or national outlet, but it's actually from local newspapers about what's going on in their county, in their cities about elections. And so I think that it's easy to, you know, listen to a lot of the noise and be concerned. But when you look at the local level, when you look at local election officials across the United States, I think that you'll see that they're very concerned about elections. They take the job very seriously, and they want to make sure that their elections are fair and secure. And so I think that that overall is the way that election officials operate. You're only hearing the stories where something happened, where something went wrong.
[00:13:07] Speaker A: Yeah, that's certainly the nature of news. You generally don't put a newspaper or a television newscast out telling people everything that went exactly as expected.
So it's not all the planes that get to their destination safely that make news. It's the ones that don't.
Just as we wrap up, what is it that you think is most important for people to know when they are thinking about their elections and perhaps even debating whether they want to participate?
[00:13:48] Speaker B: Oh, I think voters should always participate. That's the wonderful system that the United States has, is that we have this open election system for people who are registered to vote, eligible to vote. And so you should always take that opportunity to cast a ballot in every election that you're able to. You know, we want voters to trust us, and we work really hard at that. And we want voters to know that our office is open and transparent.
If you want to do a one on one with us, you know, we're more than happy to. We do public testing. We encourage voters to sign up to be poll workers, you know, and they can get to see a little bit more of the process.
And so we have worked really hard making sure that our office puts forth secure, safe elections, and we want to continue doing that. And so we want the public, obviously, to have faith in us and ask questions. We're happy to answer them.
And so, but, you know, we also want voters to make sure that they are registered to vote.
Go to voter view. Look at that. You can look at sample ballots there. You can find your polling locations. And of course, you can always visit with our office whenever you have any concerns.
[00:15:05] Speaker A: And that's, is that voterview dot Gov or.
[00:15:08] Speaker B: It's voterview.org.org. Yes. And you'll find the links for it on our webpage, of course, on the secretary of state's webpage. It's a wonderful tool for voters to find out if you are registered to vote. If we have your current and correct address, and then to view at that sample ballot. We know when we get to the general election, a lot of people are thinking there's only going to be the presidential name on there. But there's a lot of contested state rep races, JP races, there'll be city races, and of course, all the issues. So we anticipate a very lengthy ballot. And so the more prepared voters are, the faster they'll be able to get in and out of the polls on election day.
[00:15:52] Speaker A: So you mentioned communicating with the Washington county election Commission. How would somebody do that?
[00:16:00] Speaker B: You can call our office. We have an email.
The closer we get to the elections, probably in June or July, you'll see a lot more posts that we post concerning, you know, what's coming up, you know, when the ballot draw is, how we determine the names, how they appear on the ballot, just basic information about checking your voter information. And then also on our webpage, we already have listed all the, the candidates that we know that will be on the ballot, upcoming dates for requesting an absentee ballot, for early voting. So we already have that information, and we'll continue to put more information on our website as we get closer to the election.
[00:16:40] Speaker A: So is that website one that you can say, or is it one that's like a mile long?
[00:16:45] Speaker B: Yeah, well, it is a little bit a mile long one, but it's under the Washington county on their homepage. You just go to government and then look for the election commission and you'll be able to find our website.
[00:16:58] Speaker A: Okay. And I will include a link to that and the information that we include with this podcast. So. Well, thanks so much for joining us today. I appreciate you dropping by to visit with us about it, and good luck as you head toward November.
[00:17:12] Speaker B: Thank you very much.
[00:17:15] Speaker C: If you're enjoying this podcast, consider a newspaper subscription to the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette or the River Valley Democrat Gazette. We have a special offer for our podcast listeners, so visit nwA online.com nwapodcast to get started. You can also click the subscribe button on our websites, nWA online.com and river valleydemocrategazette.com. Or call us at 479-684-5509 and be sure to say that you're a podcast listener. Now back to the show.
[00:17:46] Speaker A: Okay, so let's talk, as always, about what we've got coming up this weekend from our news reporters and our futures reporters in the Democrat Gazette for northwest Arkansas. And the River Valley reporter Thomas Sicente is going to tell us about what the city of Bentonville has done, and potentially will do to deal with noise as nightlife in that community continues to grow in Rogers, members of the mayor's youth academy is they're working with Rogers Public Schools social workers to tackle a project to help young people in need by establishing dropboxes in some of the different city facilities. Campbell Roper will have that story. Doug Thompson has a story of environmental concern. The Beaver Water district provides drinking water from Beaver Lake to the region's largest cities. An official with the district says the state's rules on spreading food processing waste, really spreading them on the ground as fertilizer, really aren't strong enough. And Doug will explain what's behind those concerns. Lydia Fletcher tells us about concerns among developers in Taneytown as the city council passed public safety and transportation impact fees. And those might, well, they probably will affect the costs of development in that community. Could those fees make housing in Tinytown less affordable? That's one of the concerns. Tom Sissom will tell our readers about a recent discussion at the Springdale City Council about economic development in the city, specifically in the downtown area. From the river valley, you can hear about the newly named chancellor at Arkansas Tech University's Ozark campus. For people involved with that campus, the new chancellor is a familiar face. Sadie Le Cicero gives us the story of a Sebastian county sheriff's lieutenant whose off duty rescue of a man who had overdosed earned him a life saving award. And it's the second one of his career.
Monica Brick gives us a preview of Van Buren's old Timers Day steampunk festival coming up next weekend. It's the 46th annual installment of that event. Monica also will tell us about new texting options for receiving key information from the city of Fort Smith in Sunday's what's up section. Learn more about Ace documentarian Larry Foley's latest project about the fascinating italian heritage of Taneytown. That and more will be in the Democrat Gazette this weekend and at NWA online.com and in our app. Thanks for being part of this know the news podcast. Until next time, I'm Greg Hartin. I'll see you soon.
