Media Alert
Wednesday news conference on Chicago and Suburban Cook County voting security evaluation project
Defend the Vote, an Illinois-based nonprofit organization whose mission to the empower citizens to protect the integrity of all public elections, will hold a news conference tomorrow, Wednesday, Sept. 19, to announce a project with Argonne National Laboratory to evaluate the election security of Chicago and Suburban Cook Country's elections systems.
The news conference will include Sharon Meroni, Director of Defend the Vote; Chairman and founder of Otto Engineering Jack Roeser, who is providing funding for the project; and Dr. Roger Johnston, Manager of Argonne National Laboratory's Vulnerability Assessment Team.
The news conference will be held tomorrow at 1:30 p.m. at the Union League Club of Chicago, Room 710, 65 West Jackson Blvd., Chicago.
Media contact:
- Defend the Vote Media Affairs: (847) 382-1100
- Argonne media contact: Angela Hardin, (630) 252-5501,
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More information below the fold
Defend the Vote is proud to announce that beginning in September, Argonne National Laboratory’s Vulnerability Assessment Team (VAT) will be conducting an assessment of Chicago and Cook County’s election security.
This project will test and evaluate the security of voting processes and systems in Chicago and Cook County. One aspect of this project involves the Vulnerability Assessment Team obtaining two functioning voting machines from the election jurisdictions. While the VAT will look at cyber security issues, much of the focus on the voting machines will be on the electronic and mechanical design in order to identify simple physical/electronic attacks. They will also meet with the manufacturer, election officials, other relevant parties, and tour facilities in order to produce an in-depth report.
Defend the Vote is still negotiating with Suburban Cook County’s David Orr, the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, and Dominion Voting to arrange for machines for this investigation. The first phase of this project begins this week, and focuses on the security procedures currently in place within Chicago and Suburban Cook County.
Defend the Vote and Argonne National Laboratory will publish a report before the November elections with short-term and long-term recommendations for increased election security. This is an important step toward our overall goal of improving the security of the vote in Illinois.
Wednesday’s press conference at the Union League Club brings together Jack Roeser, Chairman and founder of Otto Engineering and an election pioneer who has provided funding for this project, Dr Johnston, Ph.D., CPP, and Manager of the Vulnerability Assessment Team (VAT) at Argonne National Laboratory, and Defend the Vote’s Sharon Meroni to announce this exciting development. Details of the study will be released at the press conference.
The press conference will be held at the Union League Club on Wednesday, September 19th, 2012 at 1:30pm in room 710.
Contact: Media Affairs Staff 847-382-1100
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