Elections Election Security
How We Protect Your Vote
As your Supervisor of Elections, it is my duty to enhance public confidence in the electoral process by providing accurate, fair, and secure elections. You will find that security is a top priority for election professionals across the state of Florida. Our election process is as secure as it has ever been. Our office has safeguards in place to ensure that the process remains legitimate and free from any form of tampering from outside or within. This page has been developed as a resource to help voters learn what Taylor County is doing to ensure secure elections and to protect their vote.
Voter registration applications are processed through the Department of State, Division of Elections, to verify that the applicant meets state eligibility requirements.
The Department of State’s online voter registration (OVR) website includes security measures to help ensure the identity of the voter is true and accurate while also protecting a voter’s personal information. OVR requires a Florida driver’s license or state identification card number and the issue date, plus the last four digits of the social security number.
Our voter registration database is updated routinely to remove deceased voters and felons per state statute and to identify and remove voters who have moved out of our county. Any changes to a voter’s record leave an audit trail that is recorded and backed up daily.
To cast a ballot in Taylor County, a voter must be eligible and registered with a residential address in Taylor County.
- Voters must present a current and valid form of photo and signature identification to receive a ballot during early voting or on election day.
- If a voter registers by mail and has never voted in Florida, or has not been issued a Florida driver’s license, Florida identification card, or Social Security number, they will be required to provide additional identification before voting for the first time.
- For mail ballots to be counted, the voter must sign the return envelope that is provided. The signature on the Voter’s Certificate is then compared with the signature on file with our office.
- Florida is a paper ballot state, leaving a trail of every vote cast.
Once a voter checks in at a polling location during early voting or on election day, or their mail ballot has been returned to our office, their status is updated as already voted. If the voter attempts to vote twice in the same election, this flag will be displayed, preventing them from voting again.
Our state certified voting equipment has been subjected to rigorous review, analysis, testing, and certification by election authorities at the state and federal level, including the Federal Election Assistance Commission (EAC). Analysis of tabulation systems prior to certification by the state is conducted by independent testing laboratories with extensive expertise in secure software design.
- Our voting equipment is rigorously tested prior to each election with a public logic and accuracy test to verify the equipment will accurately count and record votes exactly as marked.
- Our voting equipment is only accessible by staff and is under 24-hour video surveillance.
- Security seals are applied to all voting equipment and documented through a chain of custody prior to deployment to assist election officials with the detection of tampering.
- Individual paper results are printed at each precinct and returned to our office on election night to verify and match against election results.
- Paper ballots are held and stored for 22 months after an election and can be used to verify results.
A Post-Election Voting System audit is conducted after each election where ballots cast during early voting, vote by mail and on election day are hand-counted in a randomly selected precinct and race to ensure the machine count is equivalent to the human count.
We have partnered with several agencies to ensure our network is secure including the Department of State, Department of Homeland Security, and The Center for Internet Security.
- We have purchased and installed a network monitoring intrusions sensor. This sensor will monitor our network 24/7 for any intrusion attempts or suspicious activity.
- We are running a highly rated virus software package; malware software package and we ensure all our desktops and servers are patched and up to date.
- Department of Homeland Security has completed a physical inspection of our physical location and building to analyze the property and provide industry standard security protocols.
- We utilize an industry leading security system solution that is updated, contains a list of blocked IPs, and includes reporting tools to identify network security threats, issues, and trends.
- Policies are in place for user passwords and use and security of office equipment.
We conduct training with staff to help increase our knowledge of network security and submit to best practices to ensure our computers and other technological devices are secure. All employees have taken and passed a cyber security awareness course provided by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE).
