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PHILADELPHIA – Senior US election officials gather this weekend in Philadelphia amidst new revelations about Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and just before President Donald Trump does not talk to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The annual gathering has generally been a quiet affair focusing on things such as voter registration and voting devices. This year's meetings of the National Association of Secretaries of State and the National Association of State Electoral Officers arouse a lot more interest.
The conference is between charges laid Friday against 12 Russian intelligence officers. reports, and the long-awaited meeting of Trump with Putin.
Trump never condemned Russia for interfering in the 2016 elections despite the findings of all US intelligence agencies. In the past, Trump reiterated Putin's denials, but this week he said that he would raise the issue when the two meet on Monday in Finland.
"All I can do is say," Have you? "a press conference in Brussels." And do not do it again "But he can deny it."
Some state officials who run the elections say that it's important that the president take a firmer position to avoid having public confidence in fair elections. "I believe as commander-in-chief, he has the obligation to fix it, and frankly put Putin and any other foreign nation that seeks to undermine our democracy on the fact that the actions will not be tolerated" , California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, a Democrat, said in an interview this week.
Trump describes the investigation as a partisan attack, but not all Republicans see it that way. This month, the Republicans and Democrats of the Senate Intelligence Committee have supported the findings of an assessment by US intelligence agencies that Russia has attempted to interfere in the 2016 elections and acted in favor of Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton. From this effort, Russian hackers targeted at least 21 states before the elections and reportedly violated the voter registration system in at least one of the states of Illinois. Without denouncing the state, Friday 's indictment indicates that Russian intelligence officers stole information from about 500,000 voters on a council' s website. elections, a violation that has not been detected for three weeks
. These attempts prompted the federal and state governments to re-examine electoral systems and strengthen their cyber security.
Federal officials also said that it was possible that malicious software could have disrupted voting or paralyzed computer systems in the next election. A hearing last week, Texas US Representative Michael McCaul described the 2016 election as "a provocative attack on our country, and we must not allow this to happen again." McCaul, a Republican who chairs Homeland Security. The Committee said it thought the country would be targeted again in mid-term elections in November.
"We must be prepared," he said. 59014] On Friday, a federal grand jury indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers accused of hacking the networks of the Democratic campaign in 2016, then stole and released tens of thousands of documents
The act of Prosecution says one of the intrusions happened this summer. on a provider whose software is used to verify voter registration information. The indictment refers to a fraudulent email that Russian agents sent to more than 100 client election manager customers to try to get more information.
"The accusations tell us that … we can no longer deny it in any form" According to Sam Woolley, cybersecurity expert of the Institute for the Future of Palo Alto, California
the Election officials of the state must ensure that they have the strongest possible protections for their electoral systems
. "At this moment, this is certainly not the case" , he said. "Most people operate on insecure machines."
Kim Wyman, state secretary in Washington, is expected to inform his peers this weekend about how his country uses its national guard to test and strengthen cybersecurity in elections.It said it's important to tell voters that the military does not hold elections and does not have access to the electoral data.
"We are perfectly aware of the optics of working with the National Guard ionale, "said Wyman, Republican. , said in an interview. "The idea is to give confidence to voters and the public that the system is secure."
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Associated Press writer Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.
Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This document may not be published, distributed, rewritten or redistributed.
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