Hurricane Katrina offers yet another model for what to do in terms of the upcoming elections. The good news is that not a single voting machine was touched by floodwaters in Louisiana over the past week. The bad news is that some voting precincts have been badly damaged.
Secretary of State Tom Schedler is preparing for the possibility of using mobile voting precincts in November, similar to what was employed following the 2005 hurricane season. That would allow voters to show up where they usually do, rather than having to find a relocated voting precinct. Tents from the National Guard would be set up in parking lots and equipped with generators and portable toilets.
As of now, Schedler’s office is still assessing the situation.
— Before he traveled to Louisiana to survey the flood damage and work with Gov. John Bel Edwards last week, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson was floating the idea of designating electronic voting machines as “critical infrastructure” as a way to combat potential cyberthreats. After Democratic campaign systems were hacked, Johnson is asking whether voting systems should be on par with power grids, for example, in terms of protection.
Schedler took part in a call to state officials around the country recently and asked Johnson if there was a credible threat. The answer was no, according to coverage in The Conservative Review.
Some election officials around the nation aren’t warming to this idea, worrying that they could lose some control to the federal government. Plus, some election officials argue, most electronic voting machines aren’t connected to the internet. They are, instead, standalone machines.
They said it: “We can’t walk into next year’s session cold turkey and expect anything but chaos.” —House Democratic Caucus Chair Gene Reynolds, on the need for policy preparation, in the The News-Star of Monroe
—Jeremy Alford
Jeremy Alford publishes LaPolitics Weekly, a newsletter on Louisiana politics, at LaPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter, or on Facebook. He can be reached at JJA@LaPolitics.com.
