FBI predicts safest election yet for 2022 mid-terms
FBI ensures election security ahead of midterms
An FBI special agent tells KTVU the upcoming midterm election will be secure and that there are no credible threats to election security. Cyber security experts say 2020 was the most secure election in the county's history. They expect the upcoming election to be even more secure.
SAN FRANCISCO - Ballots are set to be delivered throughout the Bay Area, and some voters may have questions about just how secure this upcoming midterm election will be.
One of the top cybersecurity investigators in the Federal Bureau of Investigation who assures voters this will be the most secure election in history. In just a matter of weeks voters will have their say, determining local races as well as who controls the house and senate, and the FBI's cybersecurity unit is working to make sure that every voter can have faith that their ballot will count.
"The election process itself is as safe as it's ever been, and even more so with all of the different protections we have in place," said Special Agent Elvis Chan from the FBI. "Around the ballots themselves around the ballot counting equipment, around the voter registration databases."
Special Agent Chan says the agency is always looking at what happened in the past and applies it to the future. He says a lengthy review has determined that the 2020 election was the most secure in the nation's history.
"Like for 2020 we knew specifically the incidents that happened on a county by county level because there were so few of them," said Special Agent Chan. "I could count them on one hand."
Special agent Chan says federal agencies have their eye on misinformation and election lies that often spread through social media. He says federal law enforcement agencies are sharing data with those social media platforms with the aim of combating election misinformation with the truth.
"People are trying to dispel the disinformation and misinformation that is going on; that there are things that are happening to the election. We don't see any credible threats at this point," Chan said. "That's not to say we aren't monitoring them, we are."
The FBI says it has worked with all the registrars of voters throughout the Bay Area, and say none of them use systems which connect to the internet. In fact, Chan says more likely threats are decidedly low tech, like people trying to vote twice.