By Andrew Oxford | Arizona Republic
Arizona officials are considering tougher cybersecurity standards for the state’s elections ahead of 2020, according to a proposed set of protocols the Secretary of State’s Office published this week.
Some of the changes come after The Arizona Republic highlighted concerns about policies included in a first draft of a manual that county officials across the state will use to administer next year’s election.
Experts contacted by the newspaper pointed to provisions that did not mandate the use of encryption in some circumstances or would allow officials to re-use USB sticks when working with election systems.
The Secretary of State’s Office toughened policies on both of those issues in its final draft of the election procedures manual, published this week.
But cybersecurity has drawn particular scrutiny amid concerns about meddling in American elections.
And this is the first major overhaul of the election procedures manual since 2014, overseen by newly elected Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat.
