Ohio Secretary of State's Web Site Hacked; voter suppression tactics

The Risks Digest reports today that the office of the Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has cut back on the accessible functionality of its website after an apparent security breach was detected by technical staff. A statement from the office noted that "this is not the first instance of direct assault on the operations of the Secretary of State's office." It has been bombarded with phone calls and email "with menacing messages and even threats of harm or death," according to the statement.

"What we know is our IT department detected a situation with our Web site where there was somehow suspicious activity where someone could have gotten into our site and tried to move things around," a spokesman told The Cleveland Plain Dealer Monday afternoon.

Brunner and her office are in the midst of a bitter dispute with the state Republican Party which demanded that her office release a list of new voter registrations that don't match state and federal database records.

Ohio has 20 electoral votes and is a battleground state. Voter registration records this year in Ohio show record levels of registrations.

See article in wired.com.