North Carolina elections and government security officials want to know they've got the backs of voters who are worried about the integrity of casting and counting ballots today and entering the 2020 elections.
By Associated Press, Wire Service Content Oct. 17, 2019
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Countering any voter anxieties about the integrity of the ballot box, North Carolina officials embarked Thursday on a public campaign to highlight current safeguards and strategies against interference entering the 2020 elections.
The "Your Vote Counts NC" effort will emphasize social media to make the state's 6.8 million voters— a number likely to grow in the next year — aware that protecting free elections is an ongoing effort by federal, state and county agencies.
"We want all the voters to know all the steps we're taking to ensure fair and accurate elections, so voters will be confident that their vote counts," State Board of Elections Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell said at a news conference.
The campaign follows a tumultuous period in elections nationwide and in North Carolina.
A U.S. Senate committee's report released this summer found that the Russian government directed "extensive activity" against U.S. election systems, likely targeting all 50 states, ahead of the 2016 election. But the committee saw no evidence of altered voters or manipulated machines, the report said...
… A critic of the states' election systems says North Carolina's public campaign is creating a false sense of security about the strengths of its defenses against malicious actors. Susan Greenhalgh with the advocacy group National Election Defense Coalition said later Thursday in a release that North Carolina election officials are "bringing a knife to a gun fight" by relying on standard election practices to attempt to block foreign hackers.