Election security

What needs to be done to improve election security?

Jim Harper, Democrat

"What we do know is that our state leadership is not doing enough to ensure that our voting machines are secure in the state of Indiana. We know that our voting machines are vulnerable in this state and we know that Indiana – and the entire country – is a target."

"I'm a strong supporter of making sure that there's a voter verified paper trail – paper ballots, essentially – in every county. Indiana is one of only 13 states that does not require a voter verified paper trail. Most counties do not have them. I think we that need to enact them. I wish we had done it this year, but absolutely we need to do it for 2020."

Connie Lawson, Republican incumbent

"We know that the state is most vulnerable because of human error. And so the FBI told us there's two very important things you can do to protect your system: strengthen your passwords, which we have done – anyone who has access to statewide voter registration system has a longer password, with numbers and symbols, and so we've strengthened those passwords. But we also are using two-factor authentication. Every county in the state of Indiana is now using two-factor to access statewide voter registration system."

"Voters need to understand, no voting machine used in Indiana is connected to the Internet. Our tabulation machines are not connected to the Internet. And every machine that is used has a paper trail. They may not have the new recommendation, the new voter verifiable paper trail, but we're moving in that direction."

Mark Rutherford, Libertarian

"Well, the voting security is a horrible thing. We're not even close to what banks do, what big companies do, small companies do in security. Small companies have better security than the voting systems in Indiana. It's not getting the attention it needs and that's awful because the first thing that a government does to be respected is have voting systems that people trust. We have no backup system paper right now. Why do you have a paper backup system now? Because the electronic system is not secure enough."

"One thing is getting better electronic systems. The systems are not up to par. I don't see the type of companies that need to be doing that, doing that. Not knocking the companies now because they're doing it from a fair market position, which is this is what they want, this is what we can afford to do to give them what they want and make a decent living off of it. You've got to put a lot more effort into it. And you've got to go out and find the very best, not do what we normally do in state government, which is try to get cheap."