Some national elections experts have been issuing warnings about the potential for voting machines to be hacked. But elections officials in Ohio want to make sure voters understand what that really means.
When you hear about hackers, you might picture someone sitting at a computer remotely breaking in.
But Ohio’s voting machines are not connected to the internet, and neither are the tabulation devices.
Aaron Ockerman, with the Ohio Association of Election Officials, says election security is a very real issue that they’ve been preparing for.
“Disinformation, or misinformation, or foreign actors trying to kind of insert themselves into the political dialogue but we really haven’t seen necessarily attempts to infiltrate the vote totals or vote outcomes,” says Ockerman.
Each county locks their voting machines in a secure room that can only be opened with two keys, held by one Democrat official and one Republican official.
But while most counties use electronic machines with paper trails, there are groups who still say the most secure form of voting is through paper ballots.