Election security breaches kept secret under this Florida legislation

“Shouldn’t the public know if there is a security breach?” one transparency advocate asked.

Under legislation now under consideration by Florida lawmakers, county elections supervisors would be able to withhold information about the ever-present possibility of systems being hacked and voter records being altered.

Those dangers came close to happening in at least four Florida counties in 2016, according to federal intelligence reports.

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Voting rights groups, government watchdogs and members of Florida’s congressional delegation have pushed for greater transparency in disclosing those security breaches, but a measure by Sen. Doug Broxson, R-Gulf Breeze, would go the opposite direction. 

“We’ve seen in past elections a real invasion from outside sources to try to intimidate and change certain information,” Broxson said Tuesday in introducing the bill (SB 1704). “It happened in my county.”

In its first committee hearing, the bill was cleared without debate or objection. It has two more committees before it reaches the Senate floor. Because the bill expands an existing public records exemption, it will need a two-thirds vote for final passage.

The measure has the full backing of the statewide Florida Supervisors of Elections association, which has made it a legislative priority.

“Florida’s public records laws do not clearly protect information by the Supervisor of Elections on their infrastructure or security studies, software versions, or procedures and configurations relating to their computer security,” the association said. “This definitely needs protection.”

But Ben Wilcox, research director for the nonprofit watchdog group Integrity Florida, cautioned that the measure raises serious questions of why it's in the public interest to keep such information secret.

“Shouldn’t the public know if there is a security breach?” Wilcox asks.

Currently, state agency heads can exempt records containing network schematics, hardware and software configurations.

Broxson’s bill would expand that to allow county supervisors of elections to exempt the same records under their custodianship.

The bill would also exempt records held by a county supervisor of elections that “identify detection, investigation, or response practices for suspected or confirmed information technology security incidents, including suspected or confirmed breaches, which could be used to facilitate unauthorized access to or unauthorized modification, disclosure, or destruction of virtual or physical data or information or information technology resources.”

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Despite a barrage of public records requests from the USA TODAY NETWORK and other media outlets, state officials have refused to divulge the four Florida counties that a congressional investigative report said were hacked.

Instead, state officials have taken a “trust us” approach to detecting and correcting election security issues that were exposed during the 2016 election. 

State and county officials have maintained such breaches never affected the outcome of the election.

They’ve also refused to provide details on the millions of state and federal dollars used to fix those vulnerabilities in the elections system, citing security reasons. Too much specific information would just make it easier for foreign agents to access voter information, they say.

Florida’s heightened need for security is fueled by daily attacks and ever-present threats of future hacks, something state officials became aware of only after the 2016 elections.

“Every single day, foreign and domestic actors attempt to penetrate our network,” Secretary of State Laurel Lee told the USA TODAY NETWORK.

Jeffrey Schweers is a capital bureau reporter for USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida. Contact Schweers at jschweers@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @jeffschweers.

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