By Greg Bishop/Illinois Radio Network
SPRINGFIELD – While the CIA said hacking of national Democratic operatives’ emails may have impacted the outcome of the presidential elections, the Illinois State Board of Elections said a summertime hack on their database didn’t.
Illinois State Board of Elections General Counsel Ken Menzel said the summertime hack of voter databases only got access to some voter data. It didn’t impact the individual elections commissions throughout the state.
“The 109 election authorities use their databases to run their elections,” Menzel said. “Our’s is kind of a backup of a backup to their databases, and there’s nothing to indicate that anybody got into any of the vote-tabulation systems anywhere in this state.”
Menzel said the hack was isolated.
“We have cooperated with the state’s technology folks, as well as the Department of Homeland Security,” Menzel said. “They’ve done hygienic scans of our system. We’ve had a lot of forensic examination of things in the wake of the hack.”
The summertime incursion included a hack of the state’s voter database, which included some voter information.
“There’s always the worry about your own personal data getting out and perhaps identity-theft problems and the like, and I don’t mean to minimize that, but from the standpoint of conducting the election, what we experienced in the end of June, early July, with the database incursion is not something that impacted the electoral process in Illinois,” Menzel said.
November’s election was made official when the elections board certified to vote tallies Dec. 5 in Springfield.
On Monday, Illinois’ electors for the Electoral College meet in Springfield to officially cast their votes, which will then be transported to the U.S. Senate, along with the other states’ electoral votes.
