Title
Registrar of Voters recommending the Board:
1) Approve and authorize the Registrar of Voters to execute State of California Grant Funding Agreement 18G27109, as provided by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, to reimburse county efforts to improve cyber security and infrastructure related to VoteCal; and
2) Approve and authorize the Chair to sign a budget amendment and increase revenue and appropriations to the Elections Department for Fiscal Year 2018-19 for $25,000. (4/5 vote required)
FUNDING: 100% Federal Funding.
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DISCUSSION / BACKGROUND
The Secretary of State, through the U.S. Elections Administration Commission, has made $25,000 available for Help America Vote Act (HAVA) grant reimbursement funds to the Elections Department to improve cyber security and infrastructure related to the statewide voter registration system, known as VoteCal.
The funds will be used for conducting security assessments such as penetration testing, scanning, phishing testing, red team exercises, social engineering, and wireless access discovery. Funds can be used for the purchase of third party software and/or hardware to improve County cyber security capabilities related to VoteCal. Funds can be used for privacy and security awareness training for elections department staff--training will include cyber security best practices, including how to recognize a phishing email and avoiding dangerous applications. Funds can also be used to physically secure servers hosting county voter registration and election information systems, updating and hardening servers hosting the county voter registration and elections information system (including any Secretary of State property), monitoring systems and applications to prevent and detect data breaches or fraud, including interconnected systems.
ALTERNATIVES
N/A
PRIOR BOARD ACTION
N/A
OTHER DEPARTMENT / AGENCY INVOLVEMENT
Information Technology Department- the election managment system is hosted with the I.T. department, a...
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