Noon Edition airs on Fridays at noon on WFIU.

Voting is a crucial part of life in a representative democracy. Citizens get a chance to directly influence who makes up their government, from the local school board to the highest office in the land.

But what happens when our system of elections is attacked by a foreign power or a disgruntled domestic agent? How can Hoosiers trust that they fairly elected a candidate? What can the federal government do and will the state be ready to protect this year's elections?

We discussed the protection of our elections and more on this week's Noon Edition.

Guests

Marjorie Hershey, Professor of Political Science, Indiana University

Scott Shackelford, Senior Fellow at the Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research at Indiana University

Conversation on Election Security

Scott Shackelford and Marjorie Hershey are urging Hoosiers to vote this fall, despite election security flaws.

Hershey says there needs to be action from the people and their legislators. "Democracies don't self-maintain. They have to be maintained by the people who have them," she says.

Shackelford says he agrees and argues that more has to be done to maintain our nation's election technology and equipment. "Technology moves on, It doesn't maintain itself, just like democracy doesn't maintain itself. We're still running voting machines with Windows XP. That hasn't changed since 2014," Shackelford says.

Hershey worries that partisan officials could allow their bias to affect an election's administration. "That means that voter purges and various other kinds of things that happen in local registration rolls can be done with partisan intent," Hershey says.

Shackelford says that election security is more than just cybersecurity. "It's information warfare, it's gerrymandering, it's helping the generation coming up in school to spot fake news."​