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New survey finds most Americans concerned election systems could be compromised

Posted at 10:54 AM, Oct 24, 2018
and last updated 2018-10-24 10:54:08-04

There was a time when the only electronic involved in voting was a plug leading to a light over the voting booth, back when election fraud was limited to votes being cast by the dead. After the 2000 presidential election though states made the switch to electronic forms of voting that promised to be easier and secure after 2016 efforts by foreign actors to disrupt our presidential election it became clear the threat was real.

A survey released Wednesday by global information technology company Unisys shows 86 percent of Americans said they were worried or concerned that our election voting systems can be compromised, here in the Midwest the survey found that number slightly higher at 89 percent.

As a result 9 percent of Americans say they find the threat to election integrity to be real enough as to cause them to not vote at all while another 13 percent say there is a high likelihood they won't vote. With that combined percentage highest among younger voters.

"The lack of trust in our voting election systems as exposed by the 2018 Unisys Security Index potentially undermines confidence in America's democratic system," said  Tom Patterson, chief trust officer of Unisys. "The U.S. needs to build on progress made in preparation for this mid-term election cycle, while factoring in that younger voters are the ones expressing the highest levels of concern over the integrity of the process."

In Ohio, election officials have been working hard to put voters at ease. Ohio is one of the states that while it uses electronic scanners to count the ballots at the polling places those individual scanners are not connected to the internet.