How Ohio is keeping its elections secure after Columbus data breach

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- NBC4 Investigates has been hearing from viewers and their election concerns following the ransomware attack on the City of Columbus that put hundreds of thousands of people’s private data online. 

With people’s social security numbers and driver's licenses compromised, we are hearing the question: "Is my vote safe?" 

NBC4 Investigates sat down with the Ohio Secretary of State as well as a spokesperson for the Franklin County Board of Elections. 

The Ohio election system invites friendly hackers to test its systems, and the check-in process when you vote would make it extremely difficult for someone else to vote for you. 

Watch: How Ohio is keeping its elections secure

"This is something that we think about 365 days a year here at the Secretary of State's office," Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose said.  

We took viewer questions to LaRose: people say they are worried their vote will be compromised if their information is on the dark web. 

"The ability to pull off that kind of fraud at scale is unlikely," LaRose said.  

In person, a voter’s ID is checked, their address and photo confirmed, and they must sign their legal signature. Poll workers also make sure the voter hasn’t voted already or requested an absentee ballot. 

"Our poll workers are trained to recognize what a legitimate ID is, to look for the security features on it, like the hologram and some of the microprinting and all the different things that are on that ID card," LaRose said.  

The message of security is coming from the Franklin County Board of Elections as well. 

"Folks who maybe have had their information compromised, I think should rest assured that folks that are coming here to vote are the people who indeed should be voting with the specific name, address, their signature, those things are safety measures to make sure the person who is here to vote is that person," Aaron Sellers with the Franklin County Board of Elections said. 

Absentee ballots have safeguards in place as well. Voters have to prove their identity twice, first when the ballot is requested and then when the ballot is mailed back.  

"For somebody to conduct election fraud in that way at scale would be enormously difficult because they would have to be using, you know, hundreds of different addresses to have the ballots mailed to and so our elections official spot for that," LaRose said.  

The actual voting machines used for in-person voting are not connected to the internet, so the only way to tamper with them is by physically putting hands on them. Poll workers and security officers make sure that doesn’t happen. However, it’s not just up to the state; voters can check their ballots. 

"You can track your ballot,” LaRose said. “Again, this is where we take responsibility for this ourselves. Just like when you track a package online, you don't want it stolen off your porch. You go to the tracking system for whatever online retailer you use and you know what day it's going to arrive or even what time it's going to arrive.” 

This means voters can check if someone has fraudulently requested a ballot on their behalf; do that by clicking here. 

LaRose also takes election cybersecurity a step further, saying Ohio has led the way on cybersecurity around elections. The state works with the Department of Homeland Security to monitor activity that could be of concern at boards of elections. 

"We've even asked people to hack us by working with the good guy hackers, good guys and gals, the whitehat or ethical hackers and as a result of that, we've been able to find vulnerabilities and then quickly fix them,” LaRose said. “So in a lot of ways, Ohio's at the front of the pack around election cybersecurity." 

Poll workers are also trained to spot fraudulent patterns.