4-19-18 elections security-fdl county clerk

The Wisconsin Elections Commission has approved moving ahead with spending some of a $7 million federal grant to hire additional staff and enhance security protections ahead of the fall elections.   The nearly $7 million grant under the Help America Vote Act comes after Wisconsin was identified as a state that was targeted by Russian hackers during the 2016 election.  Immediate needs to be addressed with some of the money include  hiring up to six new staff, including a security trainer and voter registration data specialist, and purchasing multi-factor  authentication software to improve security in Wisconsin’s voter registration database.  Commission Chairman Mark Thomsen says additional spending may be directed toward needs of local election clerks.  Fond du Lac County Clerk Lisa Freiberg is training local clerks on how to protect passwords and avoid other computer hacking attempts.  “In some cases, and we do have that in Fond du Lac County, where they may be working out of their home.  The municipal clerks do go into the system, they’re going to their public libraries to use the system,”  Freiberg told WFDL news.  Freiberg says in Fond du Lac County there are three cities, a village and a town that work with the voter registration system.  She says the other 28 municipalities in the county contract the service out of the County Clerk’s office.