Secretary Hosemann says MS voting system 'not rigged'

HATTIESBURG, Miss. - Mississippi Secretary of State addressed voting concerns Wednesday. Secretary Delbert Hosemann said Mississippians should not be weary about any security hack during Election Day.

Hosemann said, “We want to tell everyone that the elections in Mississippi is not rigged, by any stretch of the imagination. All of our voting machines are basically calculators, they are not connected to the internet.”

Mississippi uses Voter ID and Hosemann said it adds extra security. In Mississippi 62% of voters approved Voter ID in a citizen-initiated Constitutional Amendment.

According to Hosemann more than 99% of voters have showed up to the polls in every election with proper ID. Secretary Hosemann said security concerns have heightened, ever since Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee leaked classified government informant three years ago.

“All of those have brought an awareness as to whether or not, your vote is protected" said Hosemann.

He added,"In Mississippi we are not connected to the internet, your vote is protected, it is not rigged.”

Hosemann said the statewide election management system still experiences a whopping 4,000 to 5,000 hacks a month, but his department is taking precautionary measures.

“We hired outside, people we talked to homeland security, we have hired outside people to attempt to penetrate the statewide election management system, they have been unsuccessful" said Hosemann.

He continued, "As of this date, so we are taking great pains to make sure that your personal information, that may lead to your financial information is protected.”

Secretary Hosemann jokingly said the polls in Mississippi are so secure without the internet, Russians could not get their hands on them.

“We have 7,000 voting machines in Mississippi. So if the Russians were going to hack our machines, they would have to take 7,000 of them.”

His office said there are 1.86 million active, registered voters in Mississippi as of October 8, 2016.