Kansas reviewing security for voter registration database

 

November 24, 2017



TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas election official says a multistate voter registration database the state manages is being reviewed for security concerns.

The Kansas secretary of state's office manages the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program database, the Lawrence Journal-World reported . The program contains voter registration information for millions of voters in more than 25 states. It originally only had data from Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and Nebraska.

The review was spurred by a story from ProPublica, a nonprofit investigation journalism organization. The October story said that public records indicate that the server the database is hosted on isn't secure and is vulnerable to hackers.

The program was created in 2005 as a way to clean up voter rolls when voters moved across state lines, said Bryan Caskey, the chief election officer in the Kansas secretary of state's office.

It's unknown if Kansas will have to fund an upgrade to the system should the review find a need to improve security.

"I legitimately do not know the answer to that yet," Caskey said. "We're still evaluating all options, and one of the options is cost."

Some studies have found that the Crosscheck system isn't always accurate. The system will sometimes identify potential duplicate registrations in different states when they're actually registrations for different people.

Election officials are supposed to take steps to contact voters whose registration may be a duplicate before purging them from voter rolls. If officials can't contact the voter, they may purge the registration if the voter doesn't cast a ballot over two federal election cycles.

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Information from: Lawrence (Kan.) Journal-World, http://www.ljworld.com

 

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