Fulton County officials show how they’re preparing for election; Sec. of State says elections secure
The U.S. Department of Justice announced it plans to have monitors at multiple counties in Georgia during the midterm elections.
Fulton County is one of them.
County officials told Channel 2 investigative Sophia Choithat they do not know how many DOJ monitors will be there next month, but the department also sent monitors during the last election.
With the midterm elections just days away, Channel 2 Action Newsgot an inside look at the preparations Fulton County is making ahead of the final voter day at their election headquarters.
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Fulton County officials said you can expect more security during the November election.
But even security is under scrutiny after a bot exposed information from the state system.
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Channel 2 Action News reported Sunday when it was confirmed that an AI developed by Anthropic had accessed the state's voter system.
According to officials, the bot hacked into the state system, but only got information about voters that was publicly available.
In Fulton County, officials say the risk of a hack at their level is low because votes don't go through the internet.
"That is not connected to the internet whatsoever, it's not connected on advance voting, it's not connected on election day," Nadine Williams, Fulton County Elections Director, said.
As for the Anthropic situation, Georgia Sec. of State Brad Raffensperger issued a statement Monday saying that the access incident had happened earlier this month.
On Oct. 8, Raffensperger's statement said Anthropic contacted his office to share a concern that its AI agent had accessed publicly available on Georgia's Data Hub.
"This isn't news. Anthropic's AI agent accessed information anyone can find publicly. Accessing public information is not a hack, and pretending otherwise is reckless and dangerous," Raffensperger said, pushing back on how the incident was being characterized in certain media outlets. "Georgia is consistently recognized as having some of the most secure elections in the country, with voting systems not connected to the internet designed to prevent fraud, paper-ballots, and risk-limiting audits. Twisting this into a security scare for clicks undermines confidence in our elections and is absolutely shameful."
The state office investigated and found that the AI had only gotten to publicly available information on the hub. Then, Raffensperger's office was contacted by the White House about the situation.
The Sec. of State's investigative findings were shared with the White House. On Monday, Anthropic confirmed to state officials that its agent had not accessed Georgia's voter list or bypassed any paywalls and had only accessed information that was available through the public Data Hub.
The county has stayed in the spotlight after being accused of voter fraud during the 2020 election by President Donald Trump.
Now, the federal government is sending in USDOJ monitors to watch Fulton County during the count on election night.
County officials said they welcome them and are ready to be transparent.
"In Fulton County, we've always had to work in the last six years, with a lot of chatter, a lot of noise, but we continue to do the work," Sherri Allen, Fulton County Elections Board Chair said.
On Election Day, 1,500 poll workers will handle votes at 129 polling sites across the county.
Police will also be out and about to help make sure your vote is safe, and you are safe when you go to the polls.
"During our previous election cycle, we had 42 bomb threats," Deputy Chief Kenneth Schierle, Fulton County Police, told Channel 2 Action News.
Despite that, police say no election operations were ever interrupted. So far, no threats for this election have been issued, but offiecrs say they're ready.
The county upped its security measures, but are safeguarding the specifics.
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