A leading international certification firm has dismissed concerns over potential election hacking in the country's first-ever internet voting system for the 2025 midterm elections.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Jack Cobb, president and laboratory director of Pro V&V, assured the public that transmitted votes cannot be altered or tampered with once they reach the server.
"The images go, but the votes don't. The votes are still right there. And then they do aggregating and they send them the results, but the votes are still on the machine, they are still sitting there," Cobb explained.
He further elaborated on the system's safeguards, stating that if unauthorized access is detected, the machine will automatically overwrite any changes.
"If you have access and you change one of the thumb drives to try to change anything on it and you stick it back in that machine, the machine's going to go, 'That's not the same as these other two things that I have, therefore I'm overwriting you with what I have,'" Cobb said.
Cobb highlighted that all data packets transmitted through the system are fully encrypted, with firewalls and intrusion detection systems in place at data centers to prevent cyberattacks.
"I'm not going to say it's hack-proof. Security is a balance of two different things, time and resources. If you have enough resources and enough time, any security in the world can eventually be broken," he admitted.
"Now, we still got time on our side because these things are not going to be deployed... They don't have enough time to learn it, and if they do learn it, the digital keys next election will be totally different. The encryption will be totally different," he added.
Pro V&V Inc. conducted the trusted build for the overseas voting and counting system on 9 March and turned it over to the Commission on Elections on Monday. The overseas voting period will take place from 30 April to 12 May.