Tag: Elections 2020

How to Vote by Mail in Cook County?

How does voting by mail work? Are you worried about voting mail fraud? Check out this video blog and you will be so much smarter after.

How is voting by mail going to work? Is it safe to vote in-person or should I vote by mail? All of your questions are answered in this video blog with Computer Forensic Expert Lee Neubecker and Cook County Clerk Karen Yarbrough. They will help put your mind at ease!

Vote By Mail

Lee Neubecker (LN): Hi, I’m here again with Karen Yarbrough, the clerk of Cook County and she’s responsible for administering elections and making sure that your vote counts. Karen, thank you for being on the show again.

Clerk Yarbrough (CY): Again, Lee. Thank you.

LN: So, today we’re going to talk more specifically about voting by mail.

CY: Okay.

LN: What do you have to do to vote by mail?

CY: Well, the first thing you have to do is be a registered voter. What a concept, right? Be a registered voter and then have a place where you want your ballot to be mailed to.

LN: Okay. So if you want to get that ballot, how can you get a vote by mail ballot?

CY: You apply at the best website in the world cookcountyclerk.com and you apply there. You will be sent a ballot and hopefully you will review your choices, make your choices, you’ll sign the envelope, it’ll be a postage paid envelope for you and mail it in. Or you have the option of if you don’t want to mail it in, we’re going to have over 60 boxes in which… They will be inside of the early voting places. And you’ll be able to drop those in the box. Now, I want to tell you that they’re inside because some people have suggested that, “Oh, if they’re out in the middle of Michigan Avenue, somebody could just cart it off.” We’ll not be in the middle of Michigan Avenue. They will be inside the polling places and they will be attended to by one of our election judges.

LN: Great. So you can either drop it off at the polling place or you can drop it in the mail?

CY: Yes.

LN: And, what is the deadline on when you can last request a ballot to vote by mail?

CY: Whatever that deadline is, don’t use that deadline to do it today, okay? Today is the day that you should request your ballot. We’ve heard some stories about the post office, although we feel like they’ve been doing a pretty good job and regardless of the noise you’re hearing from Washington, turn it off, fill out your ballot, send it in or drop it off at our locations.

LN: And So as long as it gets postmark stamped by November 4th, it counts, correct?

CY: November 3rd. Yes.

LN: Okay, November 3rd.

CY: Yes, yes.

LN: So as long as it gets stamped by November 3rd, the ballot counts?

CY: That’s absolutely correct.

LN: So drop it off at the post office if you’re concerned, but people should try to drop it off early so there’s time-

CY: We want people to apply now for their ballot. Get their ballot, review their choices, pop it in the mail or else drop it off at one of the drop boxes at our early voting sites.

LN: So, you could also think of voting by mail as doing your part to help control the spread of COVID-19.

CY: I agree. And we’re suggesting, especially to seniors, seniors are very… They want to be social and that’s what many of them have told me. They like showing up on election day. So I’m suggesting to them to use my website, cookcountyclerk.com order your ballot, review your choices and either mail it in and if you want to be social, drop it off at one of our drop boxes. You’ll be able to wait to our judges that you’re used to seeing on election day, but you’ll be able to not stand in line and pop it in our dropbox.

LN: Good. So, let’s say that someone’s at a situation where they got the ballot, they have it at home, but it’s election day. Is it better for them to drop that vote by mail ballot at a poll box or is it better to go in and vote in person?

CY: They should go ahead and vote in person. Even though that ballot, we know that ballot, they have that ballot and the fact that they lost it or they don’t have it, that’s okay. Come in, vote, but there’ll be voting provisionally. And what we do is that spoiled ballot, as far as we’re concerned, that ballot is spoiled because they’ve already voted. Each and every voter in Cook County has a unique voter code that is you. And anytime it shows up, that’s where you get the one person, one vote. We’re not again, having Mickey Mouse to vote in these elections, okay?

LN: So, you think that there’s any truth to voting by mail leading to a fraudulent outcome of the election?

CY: There’ve been countless studies done on fraudulent voting and elections. And I don’t know why this year this is such a focal point. These studies have suggested that less than one point, whatever percent, it’s just not happening, it’s red herring, it’s not happening. So we’re not going to… Although we’re going to prepare for anything like that, it’s just not true.

LN: All right. And one last thing, can you tell everyone again what the website is they need to go to, to request the vote by mail-

CY: cookcountyclerk.com the best website in the world that you can use to get the real deal. No fake news there.

LN: So you said cookcountyclerk.com?

CY: That’s right, yeah.

LN: Not .gov, but .com?

CY: No, .com. We are your trusted source as it relates to elections in Cook County.

LN: Well, thanks again for being on the show and everyone do your duty and get your ballot, vote by mail, vote early, vote often, as they say in Chicago. So-

CY: We’re only going to be voting one time in Cook County.

LN: Great. Thanks again.

CY: Thanks Lee.

LN: Take care.

Secure the Voting System from Election Hacking

Cook County Deputy Clerk John Murkovic has worked hard to secure the electronic voting system. He’s made it hard for cyber hackers to throw a wrench in our election process. Learn what measures he has implemented against election hacking.

Cook County Deputy Clerk John Mirkovic focuses on securing the electronic voting systems from election hacking

Enigma Forensics, CEO Lee Neubecker and Cook County Deputy Clerk John Mirkovic discuss election hacking and measures that have been taken to help secure Cook County for the upcoming 2020 Election scheduled for November 3rd, 2020. The two discuss past hacking attempts during to 2016 election cycle on the Democratic National Committee, including phishing attacks that compromised numerous campaign workers.

Protecting the Vote From Cyber Attacks and Election Hacking

Lee Neubecker (LN): Hello, today I have John Mirkovic from the Cook County Clerk’s Office. He’s the deputy clerk and he oversees all the technology and communications working with Karen Yarbrough, and today I’m going to be talking to him about protecting the vote from cyber attacks. First, I wanted to start off by recapping what happened in 2016. Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Chairman, John Podesta, was phished with an email on March 19, 2016. And what had happened is he forwarded an email to a staffer that had replied with a typo. The staffer said this is a legitimate email versus what the staffer should have said is this is an illegitimate email. So he did the right thing by checking first, but he probably should have picked up the phone and not relied on email. So then he went and he clicked through and reset his password. And the type of attacks that are happening right now is such that when you click a link, sometimes it will pretend to be Office365 or Google, and it will want you to put your username and password in so that you can see the document. Well, in fact, those sites are getting your credentials for later cyber attacks, or they’re trying to put malware on your computing device. So what happened after that? In April 2016, hackers created a fake email account and spearfished 30 Clinton staffers. They sent a spreadsheet that had the name Hillary-Clinton-favorable-rating.xlsx and that attachment was designed to make the staffer want to click. So these are social engineering attacks on campaign staff. And then later DCLeaks was registered, and all these emails were published and put out there, which was very damaging and probably changed the outcome of the election in 2016. So I have John here, and John, I want to ask you, what steps has the Cook County Clerk taken to prevent similar attacks here in Cook County?

Securing Electronic Voting

John Mirkovic (JM): Well, I think one is that we don’t make it so easy that you can change credentials via one email that way. So, what happened to Mr. Podesta, it would have required a few more steps in our agency, which is usually good, I guess, but it was such a clever attack. There’s almost no way to stop something that clever, and that relies on someone’s sense of urgency and emotion. So we, in our office, we work with Cook County on our email servers, so we would reach out to a different office to work with that. So the ability to make it hard to change emails, for example, you know, it can be frustrating sometimes but you know, you realize when you build those layers up if they frustrate you that means they’re going to frustrate an attacker as well so that’s one way.

LN: So deployment of frustration, a government staple, right?

JM: Yeah, the old help desk.

LN: Well, having these processes in place though, by design they help protect people and make it more difficult for hackers to get in. So that’s great. There’s been a lot of talks about potential hacks coming on election day, should voters be concerned that their vote’s going to be hacked on election day?

JM: I think they should be more concerned about the disinformation campaign that is going on about hacking voting machines in Illinois, and that we have the misinformation from nebulous foreign state actors, but they’re actually people in this country who are being paid. You know, they think they’re working for a news agency, but it’s some shell and all they’re doing is spreading misinformation, especially in Illinois. You know, we’ve had to refute notions that our ballot marking devices are connected to the internet and that anybody can get in there. So to answer your question, we use a lot of layers of security and some of them, and the main one is we don’t even give ourselves the ability to update these machines on election day or in the field, which again that frustrates us, but we also know that if there’s no way to communicate with those machines by us even, then no one else can, so.

LN: Isn’t there also a simultaneous paper audit trail for the voting machines?

JM: Yeah, so voters in suburban Cook County should be really happy with the system we have in Illinois, which requires a paper backup of every vote. So voters in the suburbs may remember, I don’t know if they had them in the city, but they may remember the sort of receipt paper printers that were built into the machines and they would kind of scroll really quick and show you what you voted for, but it really wasn’t user-friendly, so.

LN: John, just finally, should voters be concerned about election equipment being hacked on election day?

JM: Well, you know, depends where they live. If they live in a state that isn’t as committed to security, I think that people should ask questions and these are the right types of questions to ask, and if you live in a state and you find out your ballot marking device or voting machine is connected to the internet, you should be worried about that. In Illinois, that is not the case and we don’t even use the open internet for any transmission of data, we use secure cellular networks that can work one-way communications and send encrypted data that cannot be tampered with in transit. So voters should ask questions and, but they should also be mindful of who’s causing them to ask questions, and if that person is playing on their emotions.

LN: Great. Do you think that early voting and vote by mail will help reduce the potential impact of election day hacking?

JM: Yeah, I believe so. If you think about centralized versus decentralized targets. You know, an election where you have ballots being cast in 400,000 different locations, as opposed to 1,000, that’s a bigger attack vector and harder to, you know, for a foreign adversary to manipulate really. So it’s really, a mail election sort of really makes it hard for a hacker to find a way to get in there, so I think that vote by mail does make election safer.

LN: Great. Well, thanks a bunch for being on the show, I really appreciate you taking the time to come on.

JM: Thank you, Lee.

Cook County Security
Securing Electronic Voting
Cook County Clerk on Election Security

Check out Cook County’s website!

https://cookcountyclerk.com/

Early Voting in Cook County

Do you have concerns about voting in person? Cook County Clerk Karen Yarbrough urges everyone to vote early or by mail. Make a plan and plan your vote. It’s easy peasy!

Cook County Clerk Karen Yarbrough sits down with Lee Neubecker, President of Enigma Forensics to discuss the do’s and don’ts of early voting in the Cook County election and how to receive your mail-in ballot.

Early voting begins on October 19.

Early Voting in Cook County

Lee Neubecker (LN): Hi, so I’m here again today with Karen Yarbrough, the Cook County Clerk, and we’re talking about the election that’s coming up. And today’s topic is specifically about early voting. Karen, thanks for being here.

Clerk Karen Yarbrough (CY): It’s always a pleasure, Lee.

LN: We’re actually seated roughly 12 feet apart from each other, practicing social distancing.

CY: Yes we are.

LN: And we can actually look at each other while we talk, which is nice.

CY: Yes we can.

LN: So tell us a little bit more about why people should consider early voting this election.

CY: You know Lee, I used to always pride myself in voting on election day. There’s something exciting about voting on election day. The camaraderie, seeing people you don’t see, you know, particularly every day. However, I got used to voting by mail because it’s convenient. And so people should, with this particular election, they need to make a plan and then plan their vote. I’ve already made that plan. And I plan to, I’ve already requested my ballot. I expect it in the mail any day now. And I plan to review my choices and I plan to drop it in a dropbox.

LN: Great. So when can you vote early in Cook County and the city of Chicago?

CY: So in Cook County, you can early vote on the 19th of October. There are some dates, October 7th, I believe for somebody who’s not registered to vote, they can actually register and vote on the 7th of October. In the city of Chicago, they will be starting that process on October first.

LN: So is there a website that people can go to if they want to get a–

Where to find more voting information

CY: I’m glad you asked Lee. All the information that you’ll ever want to know is at cookcountyclerk.com. Everything is there. Go to that website, click on elections, and you’ll see an array of information there that can answer each and every question that you ever have for elections for this particular election.

LN: And I know that the last election cycle that you told me about that, I actually did it. It only took less than, it was about a minute time–

CY: If it takes that long.

LN: And the ballot came and it was easy. What was nice is I had time to look up the different races. I could use my computer, I could do my research and be thoughtful with access to more than my smartphone. So I could actually read things while I was voting. So it was a nice experience.

CY: Easy peasy, that’s what I say. And, you know, you can give some time to actually looking at your selections. You can go online and research the candidates and make good solid choices.

LN: Yeah, and just so you know, my daughter voted for the first time in this election and we took her to early voting in person. And I asked could I early vote instead because I was there and he said I could but it would be a provisional ballot that wouldn’t get counted until later. So I thought that it seemed, at least, there was a check and balance. Your team knew that I had already requested a mail-in ballot and they had that checkup. But if I wanted to vote in person, I could have, you know, so like, if I lost my ballot, I could still vote. It’s just the provisional ballots don’t get counted until later.

CY: Yeah, and We want people to understand that process too because I’m suggesting to people to go ahead and order a ballot, go ahead, fill out the application. Like you said, it only takes a minute or so to do that. When your ballot comes, make a determination at that point do I plan to, you know, fill this out and mail it in or do I plan to drop it in our dropbox? Or do I plan to maybe do like some others who have suggested to me that they planned the, planned doing that would be their backup plan, just in case they can’t get to the polling place on election day. So I’m encouraging anybody and everybody to please, you know, order your ballot, get your ballot, do your research and obviously vote.

LN: So you can actually take your mail-in ballot and if you’re concerned that it’s going to be held up at the post office, you can drop by any polling place?

CY: We have, right now, over 60 early voting sites. And so if you’ve gotten your ballot and you want to drop it off at a dropbox, you can do that. You do not have to stand in line and we’ll have one of our election workers standing right there.

LN: So outside there’s actually–

Drop Boxes for Mail-In Ballots

CY: Inside, inside there will be a box that you can put your ballot in and there’ll be somebody right in front of that. You will not have to stand in line.

LN: Okay, so what if someone lives outside of Cook County?

CY: Somebody who lives outside of Cook County, you mean that maybe somebody in the military. That’s what absentee voting is all about. And you know, we’ve been doing that since the Civil War. Complete your ballot, send in for your ballot, complete your ballot and mail it in.

LN: Do you have any concerns about people voting more than the once?

CY: We do not because we put a number of things in place to make sure that kind of thing does not happen. One thing, we have election judges that, you know, they’re sworn in and they review every single signature. You know, you have to sign, so they will do that. Each person has a identification number, okay, that’s only germane to you. So that way we know it’s you. So if Mickey Mouse shows up, Mickey Mouse is not going to be able to vote because Mickey Mouse does not have this voter code that we have. Finally, you know, we have a, we’ve just gone through every idea and had people to kind of test, to make sure that we are ready for the November election to make sure that people, you know, do the right thing. And that’s what we’re telling them to do. Do the right thing. At the end of the day, too, we also do, we check out 5% of the ballots to make sure, you know, after the election, that they’re right on target.

LN: And so finally, when is the last time, the last date that you can request, that you can actually go in and vote early?

CY: The last time that you can go in and vote early actually is November 3rd which is election day, okay, They can vote that day, but the day before. So that would be November 2nd. Don’t wait and do it then. Do it early.

LN: Well, thanks a bunch for being on the show. I look forward to talking to you again soon.

CY: Thank you.

LN: And vote.

CY: Oh, absolutely, vote.

For more information go to cookcountyclerk.com

See other related video blogs below

Keep the Public Safe – Vote by mail!
Voting Tips with Clerk Yarbrough
Cook County Clerk on Election Security