Oklahoma To Receive Funds To Improve Election Security

Oklahoma is getting millions of federal dollars to improve election security.

A state election board letter says Oklahoma received about $5.2 million for improvements.  It says about $2.5 million will go to equipment upgrades, about $1.5 million will go to help secure the state’s voter registration system, around $1 million will go toward additional cyber security, and about $300,000 would be used for training.

Oklahoma was one of 31 states suspected to have been targeted by Russian hackers in 2016, but as Senator James Lankford pointed out on the Senate floor, the hackers did not breach the servers here.

“There was evidence of the Russians conducting a surveillance scandal looking into the vulnerabilities in the state computer network, but they didn’t get into the election board computer network and they didn’t get into any of our equipment,” said Lankford.  “They basically came and checked to see if the door was locked and they found out, in Oklahoma, the door was locked.”

The state election board says Oklahoma should get the money for the upgrades sometime this week.