How will coronavirus, election security worries affect 2020 voting in Lee County?

The spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus and lingering concerns about election security heading into the 2020 presidential election pose unique challenges for local officials who oversee voting.

Even this year's presidential preference primary struggled as poll workers dropped out to avoid getting sick or spreading the virus. While the vote went off without major disruptions, expect a greater push for early voting and voting by mail for the August primary and the November general election.

The News-Press asked Lee County Supervisor of Elections Tommy Doyle about the possible difficulties ahead. He answered these questions in an email exchange this week, with some minor edits for the sake of clarity.

Did you have any glitches with the election that were related to the machines, the shortage of poll workers or concerns about coronavirus? This would include any lines at the polls, which are now a risk. 

We opened all the polling locations on time even though 150 poll workers were not showing up on Election Day. After visiting several polls after they opened, it was evident that the workers were well trained and could handle running a polling location with fewer people. Everything went smooth, and we had more people show up to vote than anticipated. Over 20,000 voters showed up. Remarkable. All voters and poll workers took all precautions available because of the virus. There were no lines.

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Given that we may be in pandemic conditions for many months, what, if anything, can your office do to lessen the risk of people coming to the polls? For instance, could rules and procedures be changed to allow for more distance voting?

We are going to see a large increase in Vote by Mail, plus the supervisors are going to push the governor and the legislatures to give us an option to set up Vote Centers. Vote Centers means less poll workers to train and use. They will be opened for 14 days so fewer voters in a polling location.

Given that most poll workers tend to be older and potentially at more risk of coronavirus complications, what plans do you have for the August primary and the November general to prevent or mitigate hundreds of poll workers dropping out?

We have initiated a civic leave program that includes all county employees, who can work as poll workers on Election Day with permission from their direct reports. We were able to get about 25 county employees at the last minute to work Election Day. They were younger and had more technical knowledge than our average poll worker, and they worked out great.

What, if any, concerns do you have about overall elections/ballot security heading into August and November? Do you have all the upgrades, technology, hardware you need? Is there anything you’ve asked the state for that you are still waiting on? If anything goes wrong in your county in November, what do you think it would be, and how are you preparing for that?

I am confident that we are doing everything possible to make sure our security is top-notch. We have worked closely with the state as well as the other 66 counties to make sure all of us are doing our part.

I have in place a Network Security Specialist that his sole job is making sure we have the latest upgrades and security patches in place. Remember, no vote tabulation is on the internet, so results are separate from our daily network that we use to conduct normal business.

It is hard to imagine what might go wrong because we have prepared for all intrusions. But if we had a Denial of Service attack, which we have protection for that kind of attack, this would only delay posting the results on the website in a timely manner.

The worse thing that might happen is a ransomware attack that would shut our network down. Of course, we do have a plan for that kind of attack, and we think we could recover from a ransomware attack fairly quickly.

Has your office been subject to any security breaches/phishing attempts in the days and weeks leading up to this year's presidential preference primary?

No.

What, if anything, is being done to address the voting rights of college students who were suddenly sent home and unable to vote at polling places near campus? How many votes among this population were lost? Are there statistics on how many college students register to vote where they go to school vs. their hometowns?

I can tell you that there are about 700 college students at FGCU who are eligible to vote at the precinct in the college area. Most college students use their parents' address as their primary residence. We do not really want a student using the campus as a permanent address because it will change soon. A student should always request a vote by mail ballot, which will ensure they can vote. Not sure any votes were lost, we do not have that statistic. We keep statistics about registered voters, but it does not identify whether they are a college student or not.

Follow this reporter on Twitter: @FrankGluck