Illinois online voter registration portal hacked, information compromised

Posted on July 22, 2016

Ballots — Illinois State Board of Elections officials are working to determine how much information was breached in a hack of the state’s online voter registration system. (WJBC file photo)

By Greg Bishop/Illinois Radio Network

SPRINGFIELD – The Illinois State Board of Elections is reviewing just to what extent a hacker breached its online voter registration system.

The board’s General Counsel Ken Menzel said something flagged a breach in the online voter registration portal on July 12. He said the compromised information could be wide-ranging.

“It would be a name and address, a date of birth, and the last four digits of one’s Social Security number, if that’s what’s you used as your identification when you registered; a driver’s license number, if that’s what the voter used when they registered to vote,” Menzel said.

“There’s voting history, which we’ve been able to determine wasn’t gotten into. There’s a digitized version of the voter’s signature. We’ve also been able to determine at this point that wasn’t gotten into.”

It could take up to two weeks before the elections board gets a complete understanding of the scope of the hack and what information was compromised.

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