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Sen. Nelson tweets "support" on his Russian voter hacking claim

On Friday, Nelson tweeted a report citing intelligence officials that say his claims were not false.
Credit: Joe Skipper, Getty Images
U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) speaks after he was denied access on June 19, 2018, to visit the Homestead Temporary Shelter For Unaccompanied Children in Homestead, Florida.

We’ve been talking about Sen. Bill Nelson’s claim that Russians have penetrated some of Florida’s voter registration systems ahead of the 2018 midterms for over a week now.

On Friday, Nelson tweeted a report citing intelligence officials that say his claims were not false.

RELATED: Election officials say voting safe despite Nelson claims of hacking

While we can’t confirm those specific claims, we spoke to state and local leaders about what they are doing to keep Florida’s voting system safe.

Since Nelson’s claim on Aug. 8, we’ve reached out to local supervisors of elections and all say there has been no proof of hacking. We followed up with Pinellas and Hillsborough counties on Friday and they say nothing has changed.

On Tuesday, August 16, the Florida Department of State sent Nelson a letter demanding answers by Friday.

Letter to Sen. Nelson by 10News WTSP on Scribd

Among many things, the letter said there were zero successful hacking attempts in 2016, it asked for evidence to his claims and said “we need you to disclose that information to us so we can take action. If that means sharing classified info with DOS, we request you do that through the appropriate channels no later than Friday.”

RELATED: Florida Gov. Rick Scott says Sen. Bill Nelson should provide proof of Russian meddling

In a written statement, the DOS said they are doing multiple things to continue to improve voter election security including:

  1. The Florida Department of State works with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the Florida Agency for State Technology, the Florida National Guard and the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center on election security. The Department also has five cyber security specialists in place to assist state and local election officials.
  2. The Department has state-of-the-art hardware, software and firewalls in place to safeguard voter information in the Florida Voter Registration System (FVRS) and we have systems in place that are constantly analyzing and flagging potential suspicious activity. The Department is constantly enhancing security measures for our elections websites.
  3. The Department has also been working diligently with Supervisors of Elections to help Florida counties modernize their voting systems. More than two-thirds of Florida counties have completed a voting equipment modernization and the majority of the remaining counties are in the process of completing a modernization or upgrade.
  4. Counties are utilizing $1.9 million in funding to purchase a network monitoring security solution that provides automated alerts about system threats. Counties are also using more than $14.5 million in funding to make significant investments in election security prior to the 2018 elections.
  5. The Department also recently partnered with the University of West Florida Center for Cybersecurity to provide cybersecurity trainings for state and local election officials to enhance cybersecurity resiliency ahead of the 2018 elections.
  6. Additionally, all voting in Florida is done by paper ballot so we can always refer to the original paper ballot. The only exception in law allows voters with disabilities the option to vote on accessible devices, but even this option will require a paper record under Florida law by 2020.

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