Gov. Ron DeSantis is directing Secretary of State Laurel Lee to review Florida’s election systems.
“The Department of State is committed to providing resources to help ensure the safety and security of Florida’s elections and the protection of voter information,” Lee said.
The order comes one week after DeSantis revealed that Russian agents hacked two Florida counties ahead of the 2016 election.
“Public faith in our elections is the bedrock of our democracy and we must do everything within our power to preserve the integrity of our election systems,” DeSantis wrote in a news release.
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The order is to review security and cybersecurity throughout the state, including each of Florida’s 67 counties.
“We take the protection of our databases and voting process very seriously,” Orange County Supervisor of Elections Bill Cowles said. “We will cooperate with the Secretary of State Office as they evaluate the cybersecurity of election systems in Florida.”
Florida has taken steps throughout the last two years to increase election security, spending more than $16 million in state and federal funding on systems to detect and prevent cyber threats.
“While the breaches did not compromise the outcome of the 2016 election, nonetheless, they highlight the importance of protecting the security of our elections system. Therefore, I am directing the Secretary of State to immediately initiate a review of the security and cybersecurity of Florida’s elections systems,” DeSantis said.
The news release said the Florida Department of State distributed more than $14.5 million in federal election security grants to Supervisors of Elections.
The department also provided Supervisors of Elections with $1.9 million in state funding to purchase and install ALBERT network monitoring sensors that can detect cyber threats and alert officials when is at risk, the release said.
Florida has more ALBERT sensors than any other state, according to the news release.
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