Auditor Weiss Participates in Election Security-focused Preparedness Exercise

Winnebago County Auditor Karla Weiss and local election security partners recently joined
the Iowa Secretary of State’s office to participate in annual election security exercises. These tabletop
exercises focus on effective responses to potential election-related threats and simulate potential issues
or emergencies that could affect voters and the elections process. This training allows local election
officials and their security teams to evaluate their emergency response procedures and preparedness
for such crises. Weiss explained that preparedness is key.

County auditors are asked to bring their entire incident response team to participate, which typically
includes critical team members in IT, local law enforcement, emergency management, county
supervisors, public information officers, communications personnel, and election staff from the county
auditor’s office.
Through discussion-based tabletop exercises meant to simulate realistic election-related crisis
possibilities, the Winnebago County team discussed their prospective roles during such an emergency.
These simulations included hazardous weather, breaches of physical or cyber security, misinformation
campaigns, equipment malfunction, and more.

These tabletop exercises conducted by the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office occur annually and reach
hundreds of election officials and local security partners each year. The tabletop exercises are
conducted and facilitated by the Iowa Secretary of State with support from The Elections Group.