This week on “The Impact”:
The Washington Secretary of State weighs in on the threat of cyber interference in upcoming elections.
“It’s the same things that anyone who’s connected to the internet faces from a denial of service attack where they really try to hit our server with so many requests that it brings the server down,” said Secretary of State Kim Wyman. “I’m sure the gold standard would be trying to tamper with the vote totals or tamper with the information in the voter registration database and these are all things that we are constantly trying to protect.”
We’ll highlight the new partnership that puts military grade cyber power on the front lines of the the fight against foreign hackers.
“We’re dealing with military grade nation-state adversaries that are interested in our election system and they’re interested in our election system because that’s the fundamental of democracy in our country,” said Col. Gent Welsh, Commander, 194th Wing, Washington Air National Guard. “I think it’s kind of like your high school bully. He’s going to keep hitting you until you do something about it or at least show that you’ve got some kind of defenses.”
You’ll also hear why voters in one county won’t have to pay for postage when they mail ballots this year and why state election leaders are scrambling for emergency funding in response.