Secretary of State speaks about election security ahead of 2020 election

LAKE CHARLES, La. (KPLC) - Louisiana voters will be heading to the polls this year to use aging voting machines. Louisiana is one of only a few states still using electronic voting machines with no paper record.

Some say that poses a security risk.

Secretary of State, Kyle Ardoin, says he isn’t worried.

“We have been working with our federal partners with regards to cyber security issues,” Ardoin said. “We have been working with our partners, the clerks of court and the registrar of voters, to make sure that we are all ready for it. We are. We will, like we are more secure than we have ever been for elections. We are working on legislation coming up that will require service providers which are small companies that supply IT services to up their game because we realize some of the recent attacks on two small governments have been through their IT providers.”

This comes after cyber security attacks on local and state governments in Louisiana, closing offices across the state and causing Governor John Bel Edwards to declare a state of emergency.

Ardoin says that's not something that will happen with the voting machines.

"We own our machines, we program our machines. No outsiders touch our machines. The only time they could affect numbers is if they attack our website of which we have two backups ready to put up. "

Although Ardoin says they are safe to use this election, the current voting machines are set to be phased out over the next three years.

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