Tag: Karen Yarbrough

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.

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

Keeping Yourself Safe

Keeping yourself safe in these trying times is a tall order. Clerk Karen Yarbrough says to use your common sense and practice social distancing, wash your hands and don’t touch your face.

The Corona Virus COVID-19 is upon us! We knew it was coming and Cook County Clerk Karen Yarbrough says let’s practice common sense. The health and well-being is the utmost importance for Clerk Yarbrough. She recalls lessons from her mother, wash your hands, don’t shake hands instead fist or elbow bump, sneeze into your elbow and don’t touch your face. Clerk Yarbrough sits down with Enigma Forensics CEO & President Lee Neubecker to discuss the safety measures the County has installed to keep the polling places safe. Check out this video blog with transcripts.

Cook County Clerk Karen Yarbrough says the 2020 Election will be safe!

The Video Transcript Follows

Lee Neubecker: Hi. It’s Lee Neubecker. President of Enigma Forensics. We’re a Chicago-based computer forensics and cybersecurity consulting firm. And I have the pleasure, again, of having the Cook County Clerk Karen Yarbrough on our show, to provide some common sense advice on what you should do at home and in the workplace to keep yourself safe from this Corona Virus outbreak concern.

Clerk Karen Yarbrough: Thank you, Lee, for opportunity to be here. I think we need to get across to people if they use their basic common sense and remember what mom used to say, they would probably be just fine. Now, 80% of the people who would even contract this, they’re going to be fine. It’s the folks whose systems are compromised, are the ones that probably are going to have some trouble. But, listen. When you sneeze, don’t sneeze out like that. Do it in your arm. Do it in your arm. Okay? Don’t touch your face. Don’t touch your face. I do it all the time. But, don’t touch your face. Don’t shake hands. We’re doing the bump these days. And the hand-bump. Yeah, we’re doing all of that. You know, some of this is basic. Okay?

LN: It’s space.

CY: Yes.

LN: Normally, you give me a big hug when I come in.

CY: No hugs.

LN: We did the elbow bump.

CY: Yes, that’s right. No hugs right through here, okay? Sorry, I’m a hugger, but I’ve just kind of pushed away. And the other we thing we just implemented today in our office, we usually have our meetings and everybody comes to the meeting, and everybody’s in the room. Everything’s closed up. So today we decided that we weren’t going to do it that way. We’re going to do it remotely. So, wherever you are, you tune into the meeting, and we’re going to have the meeting. So they have a name for that. It’s called social something…

LN: Social distancing.

CY: Distancing! That’s it, That’s it! So, that’s what we’re doing. And, little by little, as people get used to things, we’ll be fine.

LN: I think it makes sense to try to do this stuff before you have no choice.

CY: Yes.

LN: You can work out the kinks.

CY: Yeah, yeah. So far, so good. In our office we’ve had our challenges with some folks who have called off, said they’re not going to vote. I mean, they’re not going to… They can’t participate, they won’t be judges and that kind of thing. But we’ve been able to backfield them in. So I feel real good about March 17th. I think too, everyone should prepare for the likely event that as this thing continues that schools could be closed. That hasn’t happened yet, and it’s been evaluated on a case-by-case basis, but that’s a logical decision but that’s a logical decision that might be necessary in the future. And, so thinking about that now and thinking about if that happens, can I still answer my call at work maybe on my smartphone?

LN: Yeah. I think we’re going to adapt. I think we’re going to adapt to using smartphones

CY: Thank you Lee!

Other related videos in Cook County Clerk Karen Yarbrough Series

Keeping Offices Safe
Voting Tips with Clerk Yarbrough
Access to Justice with Jacob Meister

View CDC on Coronavirus Symptoms

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/symptoms-testing/symptoms.html?CDC_AA_refVal=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc.gov%2Fcoronavirus%2F2019-ncov%2Fabout%2Fsymptoms.html

View this website to learn more information on Coronavirus

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/coronavirus-social-distancing-and-self-quarantine

Keeping Offices Safe

Clerk Yarbrough sits down with Lee Neubecker, President & CEO of Enigma Forensics to discuss the current state of affairs. Clerk Yarbrough assures everyone voting on Tuesday, March 17 voters will be met with a clean and safe environment. Come and Vote and March 17!

Cook County Clerk Karen Yarbrough Gives Safe Voting Practices

Cook County Clerk Karen Yarbrough would like voters to know her staff is taking every precaution to make all voting stations a safe and clean environment. On top of her list, everyone should wash your hands! She says all voting staff will continuously wipe down all surfaces and are trained to keep the stations clean. Clerk Yarbrough urges everyone to remember the rules your mother gave you!…Wash your hands, sneeze into your sleeve and if you have a fever stay home from work, don’t go out and stay in and take care of yourself. Clerk Yarbrough sits down with Lee Neubecker, President & CEO of Enigma Forensics to discuss the current state of affairs.

Check out this video interview to find out what precautionary steps the Clerk’s department has taken to make sure each voting office stays safe.

Election Day is on Tuesday, March 17

Clerk Yarbrough says Keep Calm, We are on the Job!

Lee Neubecker: Hi, this is Lee Neubecker, president of Enigma Forensics, computer forensics firm based here in Cook County in Chicago. And I had the pleasure of having our very own Cook County Clerk, Karen Yarbrough, here on the show to talk a little bit about what her office is doing to help keep people safe, in light of the recent corona outbreak. Karen, thanks for being on the show.

Clerk Karen Yarbrough: Thank you, Lee. Well, you know, this is a really busy time for us and we have a number of, we have our regular employees and then we have a lot of people, almost 8,000 people, who will be involved in the election on the 17th. So we want everyone to be safe. So in the office, what we’re doing is, first of all, we’re educating people. Now, some of this stuff is just common sense. I mean, people should know to wash their hands. They absolutely should know that. They also should know that if you have to sneeze, you don’t sneeze out like that, you go like this, okay? I mean, didn’t your mom teach you that? I mean, mine did, so. So the education or bringing it back to people on how we can keep safe. So our people have, they have obviously Purell. They have the gloves if they want to wear them. They also have, they clean their work stations. So we have everything that they need and we have a big influx of people for several reasons and especially in vitals and in elections and so we want everyone to be safe.

LN: So with the election fast approaching, I know that previously you were on the show to talk about early voting, in trying to get people to pull a ballot so that they could vote from home. It’s too late for that now, but what would you advise that people should do as they’re heading to the polls?

CY: Well, hopefully they’ll have a card or some information on who they want to vote for. They’re going to find our brand new voting machines there and it’ll probably take them all of two or three minutes to vote this time. So the ease of voting, they’re going to find friendly faces there and people who are willing to help them. We have the touchscreens and we also have paper ballots if people want to use ’em. But we’re encouraging people to use the touchscreen. If you want to use your finger, then you can wipe your finger off with, and we have everything there. I mean, absolutely.

LN: Like Purell?

CY: Absolutely, we have everything there. They could use a pen to do this, you know. They could use their, bring their own pen if they want to fill out a paper ballot. So, you know, again we’re telling people use some common sense here as it relates to, you know, today and all through the last few days, what I’ve been doing is going to the early voting polling places and so I’ve met all of the judges and I see the way that they’re greeting people. They’re not shaking hands, they’re doing fist bumps or arm bumps. Yeah, like that or whatever, but they are not shaking hands. So, you know, as I’ve looked, and we’ve been looking at, watching what’s coming out of Washington, what’s coming out–

LN: Even here in Chicago

CY: Absolutely.

LN: Yesterday we had the Prudential building had their first case.

CY: Yeah, how about that? How about that? But you know what? For the most part, 80% of the people who contract it in the first place, they’re going to be fine. Children are going to be fine. It’s people who have compromised systems that have the problems. And older people. I get all of that, but people can be safe and they can be competent, use common sense and be safe.

LN: Yeah, like not jumping on an airline when you know you’ve tested positive. I don’t think you should do that if you have Corona Virus.

CY: Don’t come to work sick. We’re sending people home. Anybody’s around there sniffling or what have you or they don’t feel well, if they have a fever. If you got a fever, you ought to be at home. You shouldn’t be with us.

LN: And just because you have a fever, you shouldn’t be flipping out thinking you have Corona Virus.

CY: Not at all, not at all.

LN: They say that you need to have three specific symptoms combined to worry about it. You need body aches, fever, plus respiratory problems. So if you don’t have all of three of those, don’t bug your doctor. The doctors are under control.

CY: Don’t panic.

LN: Unless you, if you have a fever that runs awhile, call but don’t. Then you should assume that you have Corona Virus.

CY: I’m hoping that we get some better information out of Washington, though. There have been mixed messages there, so let’s hope that we can get better information out of Washington as well as what we need. I noticed that out governor was pretty frustrated about his inner workings with the federal government on what we need in Illinois. So let’s hope that they get that together.

LN: Yeah, absolutely. Well, thanks for being on the show again.

CY: Thank you.

Watch related videos to this series with Cook County Clerk Karen Yarbrough

Voting Tips with Clerk Yarbrough
Keep the Public Safe – Vote by mail!

Other Related Videos

Access to Justice with Jacob Meister
Coronavirus: The Global Impact

Keep the Public Safe – Vote by mail!

Lee Neubecker, President and CEO of Enigma Forensics has a chat with the Cook County Clerk, Karen Yarbrough, on how to stay safe during the epidemic when going out to vote.

Request your vote by mail ballot today from the Cook County Clerk’s website before it is too late!

Lee Neubecker, President and CEO of Enigma Forensics has a chat with the Cook County Clerk, Karen Yarbrough, on how to stay safe during the epidemic when going out to vote.

The transcript of the video follows.

Lee Neubecker (LN): Hi, it’s Lee Neubecker from Enigma Forensics. I am a computer forensics and cyber consultant. And I have the pleasure of having Karen Yarbrough, our very own Cook County clerk here on the show to talk about today’s deadline for voting early. Karen, thanks for being on the show.

Karen Yarbrough (KY): My pleasure. So Lee, what I’d like to do today is just simply tell people, please, go online, like right now. Don’t put it off. Don’t wait until March 17th. Now, you know, that’s Saint Patrick’s Day, but it’s also election day. And we just asked if people take the time out today and go online and order your ballot, right now. Just right now, go to cookcountyclerk.com. It’ll come right up on the screen, click the button and you’re in there. And all you have to do is put your information in. We’ll send you your ballot, and we’ll also send you a return addressed envelope, no postage. We’re going to pay for it.

LN: So in light of all the concerns about the coronavirus outbreak, this is a great way to help protect yourself, especially if you’re elderly. Everyone should be doing this.

KY: Absolutely, they should. And I have to tell you that we’re kind of ahead. I’m just looking at the numbers when I was coming over here today, and we’re at record numbers right now for voting. You know, we have our early voting sites all throughout Cook County, and they’re open until seven o’clock. And so people can actually show up there today too.

LN: But right now, if someone wanted right now to do this and get a ballot sent to them at home, what address do they go to do that?

KY: Cookcountyclerk.com.

LN: And right on the homepage, physically.

KY: Absolutely. It’s right on the homepage. They can’t miss it.

LN: And it only takes what? A minute?

KY: Oh my goodness, if it takes a minute. I mean, if you know how to spell your name and your address and your zip code. I mean, that’s what you have to do.

LN: So then I’d encourage anyone that is in a nursing home or works in a nursing home, to help those people get their early ballot, so they don’t have to go to a polling place where they’re going to be around other people. And that way they get their ballot and vote.

KY: Well people who are in nursing homes, we usually have a nursing home election. But this year because of this coronavirus, we’re not doing that. Everybody who wants a ballot, we’re going to take the ballots there to the nursing home and have them to complete the ballots, and then we’ll bring ’em back.

LN: So all of you, it just takes a few minutes.

KY: That’s all.

LN: Go to the Cook County Clerk’s website. Click the link and sign up. And you’ll have a ballot and you can still vote from home. You don’t have to worry about going out to the polls.

KY: Not at all.

LN: And that will help reduce the crowds on election day.

KY: Yes, that’s my message today. Vote, yeah. Vote at home.

LN: Vote early, and often, but from home.

KY: And at home. Yes.

LN: Great. Well, thanks for being on the show.

KY: Thank you.

Cook County Security

This is Part 2 in the Cook County Election Security Interview

Last week, I sat down with Cook County Clerk Karen Yarbrough and her Deputy, John Mirkovic to discuss the many cyber security changes. Clerk Yarbrough gave an excellent interview discussing changes she has helped bring about during her tenure to protect the ballot box. As a followup to that interview, I sat down with her Deputy who provided more technical details regarding the current state of cyber security readiness and efforts to adopt leading technologies to streamline and secure government from cyber attacks. To view, Part 1 Please watch this followup to the previous interview with Clerk Yarbrough by clicking the image below.

The transcript of the interview follows:

Election Cyber Security Safeguards

Lee Neubecker: Hi, I’m here today with Karen Yarbrough, the Cook County Clerk and Recorder, her deputy, John Mirkovic is her data wizard. He’s come on my show to talk a little bit about Election Cyber Security and some other interesting topics. John, thanks for coming on today.

John Mirkovic: Thanks for having us, Lee.

Lee Neubecker: So, the Clerk and I were talking a little bit about Microsoft’s open ElectionGuard and I wanted to get your take on what’s happening with that. If you could tell everyone what the platform’s about and what brought this about in terms of Microsoft’s involvement.

John Mirkovic: Yeah, we’re pretty excited about this and one reason, our vendor is participating. So, generally, this is an idea to build really the best voting machine out there or kind of establish the software and hardware standards that the government would like jurisdictions across the country to adopt to really open-source standards. So, what this is about is, as you know open-source, it’s about doing all the work on the front end, publishing your code and your set-ups and inviting the world to attack it and try and penetrate it. So, our vendor is working with this system. We are monitoring the progress. It’s moving a little slow but we’re excited that there are finally people talking about open-source in government because it’s really the most important.

Lee Neubecker: Oh yeah, and it’s good too because essentially you’re putting the spotlight on the system. So, if there’s a bug, everyone’s talking about it online and it gets fixed, it’s transparent and what I like the best about this is it creates a potential for all these Clerks and other parties responsible for voting to be able to capture and preserve those votes and introduce technology to allow people to verify that their vote was cast as intended.

John Mirkovic: Yeah, exactly, and a lot of offices across the country don’t have enough resources to get the equipment they want. There are a lot of states that vote only on electronic machines which is frightening, really, and it’s kind of the worst system to have, so, any kind of sharing of resources is vital for the government to be able to quickly get the entire country up to the same standard.

Lee Neubecker: So, John has the federal government been helping get Cook County ready for the next election cycle? And if so, what has the federal government’s role been with assisting you?

John Mirkovic: Yeah, they’ve been a great partner both Department of Homeland Security and the FBI. It is a true partnership because we have adequate resources here, so we’re able to implement a lot of the cutting edge stuff that they would like to see across the country.

John Mirkovic: So, we are almost like a pilot or a laboratory really. They’re in our office on Election Day, monitoring the systems, checking how all the CyberSecurity systems work, and real-time threat sharing. So, yeah, we in Cook County are considered to be amongst the top 1% of performers in the country and we’re happy to help spread that information to other jurisdictions.

Lee Neubecker: Last time when you and I had lunch, you were telling me a little bit about some of your work in the blockchain space and some of your ideas for how you thought blockchain might be able to help Recorder officers everywhere with using blockchain technology to record deeds. Can you tell a little bit about what the premise is behind that and explain to people how that can revolutionize the recording of deeds?

John Mirkovic: Yeah, yeah, it sort of ties into elections too. You know the most famous blockchain out there is Bitcoin. And Bitcoin works so well because it’s only designed to do one thing which is transfer numbers from one ledger to another. So, really being inspired, you know, not only by the technological ability to protect that using hashing algorithms and digital signatures, just the general idea on architecture software in the same manner.

John Mirkovic: And, you know, Clerk Yarbrough said before, “It’s like …Back to the Future.”

John Mirkovic: Technology doesn’t always have to be about adding more features. And generally, when you build products in committees or groups, no one’s happy and the compromise is never what anyone wants. So, in election security there can be no compromises, we have to have the best.

John Mirkovic: So, blockchain, you know, is a way to digitally guarantee certain outcomes. So, you know, it’s not quite ready for elections yet though there have been some experiments with it. It’s a great technology for Land records and preferably only if it is applied on a large scale to protect the entire transaction. So, blockchain is a way to wrap an expensive, important transaction in CyberSecurity and ensure that it works out.

Lee Neubecker: So, right now, I know it’s common if people are trying to research property records. They’ll come down to the Recorder’s office, go into the basement, sometimes look through microfiche or something. Is there a likelihood that if this technology gets adopted, universally.. that all those old records will be retroactively kind of put back out onto the blockchain so that they exist in cyberspace?

John Mirkovic: Yeah, that’s a great question, one that we get a lot. It some smaller counties you would probably be able to do that. Cook County, unfortunately, has way too many records in various states of microfilm. And, to get those on, they would actually require the same types of effort that creates bad data in the first place which is re-keying data entry. So, really the best approach, if we were to switch to such a system would be… like the County used to insure title for certain transactions. So, in those cases we could, look at the transaction, insure over any risks from the 1950s and 60s. We know what else is out there, you know, the 50s in kind of electronic format. So, it’s too tough to get it all into the same system but when you think about how these systems work, you know, if you have a legacy database and a distributed database, it’s all feeding to one website, right. So, the public, you know, when they go and do their research, they’re not really going to see the background whether it’s a distributed database or a centralized database. So, it’s all about how you deliver the information to the people.

Lee Neubecker: Well, thanks a bunch for being on the show. I really appreciate it. Thank you.

Cook County Clerk on Election Security

Enigma Forensics’ CEO Interviews Cook County Illinois Clerk Karen Yarbrough on election security. The two discuss progress made in securing the vote against cyber attacks over the last several years.

Clerk Yarbrough has been working to streamline and improve the efficiency of the Clerk’s office while ensuring that the next 202o election is protected against rogue nation states that may want to compromise our next election cycle.

Transcript of the interview is as follows:

Lee Neubecker: I am here today with Karen Yarbrough she is our Recorder of Deeds and Clerk in Cook County here in Chicago.

Clerk Karen Yarbrough: Well not quite Recorder of Deeds anymore Lee, I am now the Cook County Clerk and will be taking over the Recorder of Deeds office in about a year. We actually went to the voters and the voters decided that they were going to do a consolidation of the two offices and so I will pick up the Recorders job in about a year.

Lee Neubecker: So you must have a lot of integration going on with technical resources.

Clerk Karen Yarbrough: You can imagine, and yes we do. I have a very capable staff and we’re trying to get our arms around you know in the clerk’s office there are a number of duties and responsibilities we have elections of course, we have vital records and then we also are involved with taxes, and so I’ve been in this job since December. And what I’m trying to do now is get ready for 2020 and the big election for sure. But also we are absorbing the duties of the recorder of deeds. Big undertaking.

Lee Neubecker: So with all the talk of election hacking and whatnot by different nation states and foreign entities. What kind of things are you involved with, with Cook County with helping to defend against the voting system being attacked the next election cycle?

Clerk Karen Yarbrough: Well for starters Lee, our approach is a multi-leveled risk management approach. We know that there’s no system is foolproof. I mean you know it’s not a perfect system. No system is. Knowing that, we tend to look at every aspect of our system. We have these guiding principles. Defend Detect and Recover. What that simply means is we have a plan we have a plan A plan B all the way to Z.

Lee Neubecker: So its more than just putting your head under the covers.

Clerk Karen Yarbrough: Oh, no, no, no. I noticed when we were in the Recorder Deeds office our systems were attacked on a daily basis. People scraping our sites and in all of these kinds of things. So I am aware of this business of you know people trying to steal data and and what-have-you. But the elections are absolutely positively important. People need to understand that their vote does count and it will count. All the noise we’re hearing from Washington DC really makes people nervous.

Lee Neubecker: What kind of hings have happened to help make sure that wasn’t going to happen. Let’s say if the computers all get zapped to make sure that votes that are casted get counted.

Clerk Karen Yarbrough: Well first of all I have a team of experts. On staff. We’re sharing a gentleman with the city of Chicago who is at the top of the food chain when it comes to people who know about this kind of thing. Having those people on board working with the city of Chicago, we also have a two-factor login authentication of course the firewalls VPN and dedicated private data networks. Then we’re going to be able to lock down our systems both on the hardware and software lock them down before and after elections. So those are the kinds of things that we’re doing. And I think we’re going to be ready coming 2020.

Lee Neubecker: I understand that you’re currently doing some projects to seek outside computer forensic experts. What is your office looking for assistance with right now?

Clerk Karen Yarbrough: I think we’re putting something right now, I might want to defer to John Mirkovic who’s with me here today, on how that’s going. John’s been with me since I was actually in Springfield as a legislator and he has been working on the Blockchain Initiative and certainly this, and so, if you would, could you defer to him, so he can talk about what we’re doing there because John keeps up with this more than I do.

Lee Neubecker: Sure absolutely. What, in the event that a data breach were to happen, what kind of things are in place to make sure that you can recover and get back?

Clerk Karen Yarbrough: Sure. Okay having those plans certainly are important. But you know the Cook County just spent 32 million dollars on new voting equipment. That voting equipment that we have it’s almost like going back to the future,you know all the talk about, you know,voting on the internet and all these kinds of things,up come at some time, at some point in the future. But today we need to know that those votes are safe. So with the system that we have now. I don’t know if you remember,but you would have a system where you have on the side this kind of ticker tape thing that would show you how you voted.

Lee Neubecker: Paper audit trail.

Clerk Karen Yarbrough: Okay yeah well nobody noticed it. I mean I shouldn’t say nobody. But many people didn’t notice that with the new equipment, and we piloted it actually in your suburb and a couple of others. So we ran it through, and people loved it. It was so simple. So you know, you vote, you can either vote, the same way you vote now. So you could use your stylus or what have you. You place your vote, but then it’s going to shoot your ballot out to you. You’ll be able to hold that in your hand. You’ll be able to see if everything you voted for is there. And then you, not somebody else, but you will be able to post and cast your ballot.

Lee Neubecker: So the key thing is, well while the votes are being stored electronically there’s also be printed, they’re also being verified in a print out, that people can see. And then they can take it over and feed it and then scan it so you have another level of detection done, you’ve got the paper vote locked up in a box.

Clerk Karen Yarbrough: Exactly. And let’s say you mentioned something about the whole system blowing up. Okay so if the whole system blows up we still have that paper ballot locked away so that if we have to go back and let’s say everything blew up and people are running all around, with what have you. We can go and retrieve those documents and by hand we can actually,you know, count those those votes, so people should feel confident.

Lee Neubecker: It’s a great Improvement.

Clerk Karen Yarbrough: It is.

Lee Neubecker: I was brought in to consider bidding on the suburban voter audit project for the forensic project. At the time, what I was concerned about, is there wasn’t a simultaneous printout. And at certain points in time, the votes only existed electronically in storage media. They would be transferred to a consolidator that would transmit it. There was a potential at the time, that someone could have a USB device preloaded with 118 votes but in a different distribution. They could swap that device out and put it in the consolidator. But that doesn’t doesn’t exist now with the new equipment.

Clerk Karen Yarbrough: Not at all. So we’re happy about that. Let me tell you, we’re happy about that. The voters who voted in the last election, both the voters and our folks who run the elections, the judges, and what have you, just absolutely love the new system. They liked the fact that they were going to have that ballot in their hand. We shared with them, what happens now? I said well your votes are going to be counted. I said well what if? That’s the same questions that you ask. Well what if? Well we’ve taken all those precautions. But, Lee, I know, like you know, while you have a better mousetrap today, you always have to stay on your P’s and Q’s. The young man I was talking about Raoul, is his name, we share with city Chicago, everyday he’s checking our system, right now, we’re just about we’re ready to go. I think if we had to have an election today, we could have that election and have the confidence that we need to know that we’re going to have a good election, it’s going to be safe, people are going to feel good about how they’re gonna be able to cast their ballot. I’m just excited about the whole thing.

Lee Neubecker: I appreciate everything you’re doing to help secure the vote in Cook County and all your effort to streamline the government.
Clerk Karen Yarbrough: Well thank you so much for the invitation to come on. I’m just thrilled and I know that you’re a real geek and you know all of this stuff. But thank you so very much for having me on.

Lee Neubecker: Thank you Karen Yarbrough!

Watch the second part in this two part series on Cook County Election Security here.