As hacking makes headlines, the Elections Office gets questions from the public about cybersecurity. If you are a Cheshire elector, you can be assured that the Elections Office employs numerous safeguards at a local level to protect the security and integrity of your vote.
Every American state manages its elections differently. Voting technology used by Connecticut municipalities is vetted by the state and its accredited contractors, who test voting equipment before it reaches individual towns, where it is tested again both before and after elections. The optical scan system allows this repeated local testing and provides a "paper trail." 5% of all voting districts in the state are chosen by publicly observed lottery to be audited by hand-count after every election event to ensure that tabulators are performing accurately. A UCONN program provides an additional check.
The bottom line is that from the time the candidates' names on ballots are finalized to the moment the results are posted online at the end of election day - and even afterwards - a long, diffuse line of unrelated non-partisan observers is monitoring the electoral process, on the alert to see if anything is amiss.
On a wider scale, the Secretary of the State's office handles cybersecurity in partnership with federal authorities like the Department of Homeland Security, security monitors, and neighboring states. Connecticut was targeted by hackers during the 2016 election, but their efforts to interfere with the electoral process were unsuccessful.
As the Elections Office receives information about this issue in the future, we will post it here.