{"id":33969,"date":"2018-02-20T23:09:00","date_gmt":"2018-02-21T07:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/to-boost-election-security-alaska-suspends-electronic-absentee-program\/"},"modified":"2018-02-20T23:09:00","modified_gmt":"2018-02-21T07:09:00","slug":"to-boost-election-security-alaska-suspends-electronic-absentee-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/to-boost-election-security-alaska-suspends-electronic-absentee-program\/","title":{"rendered":"To boost election security, Alaska suspends electronic absentee program"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Alaska Division of Elections has announced it will suspend a little-used absentee voting program in an effort to improve the security of the state&rsquo;s elections.<\/p>\n<p>In a note released last week, the division said it had received a &ldquo;B&rdquo; grade for election security in a recent study conducted by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.americanprogress.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">the Center for American Progress<\/a>, a progressive public policy group.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;B&rdquo; was the highest grade awarded to any state in the country; 11 states received the ranking, the report indicated.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.americanprogress.org\/content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/11130702\/020118_ElectionSecurity-report1.pdf#page=36\" target=\"_blank\">Alaska&rsquo;s report<\/a> drew attention to the way the state handles absentee ballots submitted from overseas.<\/p>\n<p>The report said in part, &ldquo;Alaska allows voters stationed or living overseas to return voted ballots electronically, a practice that election security experts say is notoriously insecure. Unlike most states, Alaska allows all absentee voters &mdash; not just (overseas absentee) voters &mdash; to return voted ballots via fax. Alaska&rsquo;s broad allowance of the practice leaves it vulnerable to Election Day problems.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>After the report&rsquo;s release, Division of Elections supervisor Josie Bahnke wrote, &ldquo;Alaska is suspending the return of completed ballots through a web portal in 2018 until a more secure solution is available. The Division will continue to accept voted ballots via fax and by mail.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"http:\/\/elections.alaska.gov\/Core\/voterregistrationstatistics.php\" target=\"_blank\">Division of Elections statistics<\/a>, 8,411 absentee ballots were returned electronically in 2016. That represents about 7 percent of the 123,239 absentee ballots voted in the most recent statewide election.<\/p>\n<p>According to the Department of Homeland Security, Alaska&rsquo;s voting system was one of 21 state systems examined by Russian hackers before and after the 2016 election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Alaska Division of Elections has announced it will suspend a little-used absentee voting program in an effort to improve the security of the state&rsquo;s elections. In a note released last week, the division said it had received a &ldquo;B&rdquo; grade for election security in a recent study conducted by the Center for American Progress, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":33970,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[34],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-33969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-alaska-legislature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33969"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=33969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}