> and an employee pushed the wrong button

I would assume that was how it was explained to the governor, and that the actual system is software based (right?) - there couldn't possibly be an actual physical 'ballistic missile alert' button right next to the 'shift change' button.

In which case, the triggering of this alert is probably a bit more complex. However, this is treated as a sensitive system so there likely will not be an actual post-mortem on the incident