Thursday, March 28, 2024 Mar 28, 2024
48° F Dallas, TX
Advertisement
Local News

Dallas County Commissioners Vote to Spend $50,000 on Assessing Election Security Prior to Midterms

Citing increased concerns regarding election security and safety, Dallas County commissioners voted Tuesday to re-assess its readiness for potential threats.
By |
Image
Bret Redman

Tucked into a bundle of budget items the Dallas County Commissioners Court approved Tuesday was an order to use $50,000 to review election security ahead of November’s midterms. California-based consulting firm Tetra Tech will conduct the review.

According to the agenda, the Dallas County Elections Department requested the assessment after the county’s Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management found issues during an internal review of the county’s elections department offices. 

“The purpose of the security assessment identifies, assesses and implements key security controls for protection of voters, as well as election workers. It also focuses on preventing security vulnerabilities,” the agenda says. 

When asked for comment, a spokesperson for Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins declined, citing the “sensitive nature of the topic.” Dallas County currently has roughly 1.41 million registered voters, and in 2020, 66.15 percent of those voters cast ballots.

Officials aren’t just concerned with security vulnerabilities—the safety of polling places and county election offices have become even more of a priority since the 2020 presidential election. Safety concerns prompted Dallas ISD trustees to make Nov. 8 a virtual professional development day, keeping students and most staff away from campuses that are also used as polling locations. Garland and Keller school districts also opted to keep students from school that day.

A “Tabletop the Vote” exercise, which was conducted last month by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency along with state and local election officials, gave counties the opportunity to prepare for hypothetical risks. 

CISA said that all 50 states and thousands of local jurisdictions share and receive threat information through several channels. “Rigorous safeguards are in place to ensure the cyber and physical security of election equipment, and procedures and protocols are continuously improved to further identify, respond to, and recover from potential incidents,” the committee said in a statement.

Across the state and the country, elections officials have reported increased threats since the 2020 election. In Gillespie County, in Central Texas, threats led the entire elections staff to resign. 

A U.S. House committee investigation into election misinformation described threats to one Texas elections administrator that included “a social media call to ‘hang him when convicted for fraud and let his lifeless body hang in public until maggots drip out of his mouth’ and messages threatening his children, stating, ‘I think we should end your bloodline.’”

A survey by the Brennan Center found that one in three election officials feel unsafe because of their job, and one in five reported threats to their lives as a job-related concern. Fifty-four percent said that social media has made their jobs more dangerous.

Author

Bethany Erickson

Bethany Erickson

View Profile
Bethany Erickson is the senior digital editor for D Magazine. She's written about real estate, education policy, the stock market, and crime throughout her career, and sometimes all at the same time. She hates lima beans and 5 a.m. and takes SAT practice tests for fun.

Related Articles

Image
Local News

An Early Look at 2026 FIFA World Cup Logistics

The World Cup matches will be held in Arlington, but Dallas will be home to a great deal of team and fan experiences. We're getting an early look at what that will look like.
Local News

Leading Off (3/27/24)

Parks, fires, and rain on this Wednesday morning.
t c broadnax dallas city manager
Local News

Austin Will Offer T.C. Broadnax Its City Manager Job

The Austin City Council will vote to offer outgoing Dallas City Manager T.C. Broadnax its top job at a meeting next month. His last day in Dallas is expected to be June 3.
Advertisement