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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every

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Speaker 1: day we bring you insight and analysis into the most

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Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more

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Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud

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Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. Why is the

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Speaker 1: front line to protect the integrity of the US presidential election?

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Speaker 1: In Springfield, Illinois in a strip mall right next to

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Speaker 1: a Chucky Cheats joining us with the answer is card

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Speaker 1: came a road trip Bloomberg News legal reporters, So carterke

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Speaker 1: what's located in that Illinois strip mall? The Illinois State

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Speaker 1: and Board of Elections. This is the agency that helps

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Speaker 1: counties run their elections in Illinois. And this is also

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Speaker 1: the agency that was hacked in June two thousand sixteen

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Speaker 1: ahead of the presidential election by Russian operatives seeking ways

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Speaker 1: to to UH infiltrate US election systems. They had access

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Speaker 1: to the state's voter registration database and downloaded at least

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Speaker 1: seventy two thousand UH files of Illinois voters. They were

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Speaker 1: unable to alter them, But the question going forward is

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Speaker 1: did they learn something while they were in there to

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Speaker 1: influence so what is Illinois trying to do to secure

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Speaker 1: the elections in the future. So the federal government gave

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Speaker 1: states their share of three d eighty million dollars in

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Speaker 1: two thousand eighteen, along with some of their own money.

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Speaker 1: They have acquired UH the censors and software from the

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Speaker 1: federal government to detect malicious intrusions. They have hired these

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Speaker 1: nine cyber navigators. These are UH tech experts who have

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Speaker 1: been deployed to different pockets of the state to ensure

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Speaker 1: that those counties without i T resources have some sort

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Speaker 1: of opportunity to check their systems. They also have the

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Speaker 1: National Guard on speed dial. The National Guard in the

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Speaker 1: state will descend on any counties on election night that

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Speaker 1: fear they have been hacked. That's that's their front line.

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Speaker 1: So election security is a state by state concern. Are

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Speaker 1: some states more concerned than others? All states are concerned.

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Speaker 1: All states seem to be doing what they believe are

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Speaker 1: in their voters interests. The question is do all states

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Speaker 1: have comparable resources to rebuild their systems or ensure that

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Speaker 1: their vulnerabilities are patched ahead of UH And we know

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Speaker 1: that some of the poorest states are swing states. We

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Speaker 1: know that some of the least resource states are the

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Speaker 1: ones where if you are able to UM influence votes,

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Speaker 1: you can affect the outcome. And it seems like money

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Speaker 1: is a huge obstacle here for all the states because

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Speaker 1: in your story, I mean, the amounts of money needed

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Speaker 1: to secure these systems is it's a lot, that's right.

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Speaker 1: So the Brennan Center released a report right after the

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Speaker 1: story was published saying that states in the next five

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Speaker 1: years will need at least two point two billion dollars

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Speaker 1: to shore up their systems. They have way short of

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Speaker 1: that in in Illinois alone, the one of two states

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Speaker 1: that we know was hacked in sten they say they

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Speaker 1: need a hundred seventy five million dollars to prepare for

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Speaker 1: They've got thirteen from the federal government and five of

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Speaker 1: their own. Going forward, resources are a major issue. UH.

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Speaker 1: The amount of money necessary to buy new voting machines,

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Speaker 1: to rebuild registration networks, or just to shore them up

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Speaker 1: UM requires a large chunk of change, and then to

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Speaker 1: hire qualified UH tech experts. I mean, states are effectively

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Speaker 1: compete with Silicon Valley to to get the top minds

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Speaker 1: to come protect the central tenant of American democracy. With

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Speaker 1: both hands tied behind their back because they simply don't

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Speaker 1: have the resources to compete with Facebook and Twitter and

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Speaker 1: and Mitch McConnell sent a majority leader would not put

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Speaker 1: up for a vote any bills for more money for

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Speaker 1: the states or for election security Cardike, what's the greatest

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Speaker 1: concern of election security experts about? Is it software? Is

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Speaker 1: it old machines? Is there one huge concern? Yes, Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know you can. You can do everything you can

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Speaker 1: to shore up your back door and sure you know

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Speaker 1: who's in your system and responding to it. The biggest

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Speaker 1: issue for election security right now is actually disinformation. It's

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Speaker 1: the ability to not just change votes, but to change

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Speaker 1: minds on social media and and solutions to that are

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Speaker 1: uh still being debated, and I think they're working with

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Speaker 1: social media companies to try to find a remedy. But

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Speaker 1: the hardware issue is one that if there was enough money,

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Speaker 1: you could try to start solving. The question of disinformation

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Speaker 1: is another one that, uh that folks are very much

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Speaker 1: concerned about. And as far as Illinois, I understand from

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Speaker 1: your story that there were at odds with DHS over

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Speaker 1: how successful Russian hackers actually were. When about a minute

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Speaker 1: and a half explained the problems there sure. So what

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Speaker 1: Illinois has happened is that in the middle of June

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Speaker 1: of two thousand and sixteen, Russian hackers accessed their voter

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Speaker 1: registration database because of a vulnerability in that system. They

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Speaker 1: found a backdoor that was unlocked. They got in and

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Speaker 1: they started downloading files. UH and over the course of

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Speaker 1: three weeks, they did it quietly and accessed a major

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Speaker 1: major section of the voter registration database. Once they had

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Speaker 1: accomplished what they sought to accomplish, says the state, they

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Speaker 1: inundated the system. They basically wigh their hand up and

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Speaker 1: said we're here, We've been here, we want you to

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Speaker 1: know we're here, and now we're shutting down the voter

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Speaker 1: registration database. And in Illinois then took action to patch

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Speaker 1: up the vulnerability and UH and said that look, Russia

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Speaker 1: didn't have permission to actually change anything. They didn't acquire

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Speaker 1: the rights to write over the files. They could only

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Speaker 1: read them. The Senate Intelligence report a couple of weeks

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Speaker 1: ago said that they could have done a lot more.

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Speaker 1: They didn't and we don't know why. And that remains

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Speaker 1: sort of the um discrepancy between the federal government and

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Speaker 1: the state and to the extent that Illinois knows exactly

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Speaker 1: what happened is a question. There's so much more to

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Speaker 1: talk about here. Thanks so much. That's car Kaine morocha

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg News legal reporter. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show

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Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast.

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Speaker 1: I June Grasso, This is Bloomberg. M HM.