News
America Continues to Ignore the Risks of ...

Last month, when Congress authorized three hundred and eighty million dollars to help states protect their voting systems from hacking, it was a public acknowledgement that, seven months out from the midterm elections, those systems remain vulnerable to attack.

America Continues to Ignore the Risks of Election Hacking
News
14 states' voting machines are highly ...

Texas counties have doled out millions of dollars in recent months to replace thousands of old touch-screen voting machines that lack a paper record – a weakness security experts warn could allow Russians or other hackers to rig U.S. elections without detection.

The problem is, many of the new machines have the same vulnerability. So do similar machines in more than a dozen states across the country.

14 states' voting machines are highly vulnerable. How’d that happen?
News
Senators unveil bipartisan push to deter future ...

A pair of senators from each party is introducing legislation meant to deter foreign governments from interfering in future American elections. 

The bill represents the latest push on Capitol Hill to address Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election and counter potential threats ahead of the 2018 midterms. 

Senators unveil bipartisan push to deter future election interference
Election Reform, Voting Transparency
News
New Bill Could Finally Get Rid of Paperless ...

A bipartisan group of six senators has introduced legislation that would take a huge step toward securing elections in the United States. Called the Secure Elections Act, the bill aims to eliminate insecure paperless voting machines from American elections while promoting routine audits that would dramatically reduce the danger of interference from foreign governments.

New Bill Could Finally Get Rid of Paperless Voting Machines
Election Reform
News
Elections security is national security

The U.S. Senate should enthusiastically pass the Graham-Klobuchar amendment to H.R. 2810, the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2018.

The amendment would enormously strengthen defenses against cyber attacks that could compromise the integrity of elections in the United States and undermine legitimacy of government.  Public confidence in the reliability of elections is a cornerstone of national security—the willingness of the people to fight and die for their country. 

Elections security is national security

Featured News

Sidney Powell Argues Her Dominion Defamation Lawsuit Be Tossed Because ‘No Reasonable Person’ Would Believe Her

Sidney Powell, attorney for then-President Donald Trump, conducts a news conference at the ... [+]CQ-ROLL CALL, INC VIA GETTY IMAGES

Sidney Powell, attorney for then-President Donald Trump, conducts a news conference at the ... [+]

CQ-ROLL CALL, INC VIA GETTY IMAGES

Mar 22, 2021, 05:37 pm EST
Carlie Porterfield
Forbes Staff

TOPLINE

Former Trump lawyer and conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell moved to dismiss a lawsuit filed against her by Dominion Voting Systems Monday, arguing her earlier claims that Dominion was involved in an orchestrated voter fraud effort were so outrageous that “reasonable people would not accept such statements as fact.”

KEY FACTS

Powell’s lawyers argued her claims that Dominion worked with Democrats to rig its voting machines to ensure a win for Joe Biden were clearly her own “opinions and legal theories” and not statements that the public would immediately believe.

According to the lawyers, Dominion’s descriptions of Powell’s statements as “wild accusations” and “outlandish claims” support the idea that a reasonable person would not automatically believe her.

Her claims were made as she served on former President Donald Trump’s legal team, which was tasked with challenging the results of the 2020 election in courts across the country after he lost to Biden, all of which were thrown out.

Read more…

The Cybersecurity 202: Lawsuit seeks to force Pennsylvania to scrap these electronic voting machines over hacking fears

The Cybersecurity 202: Lawsuit seeks to force Pennsylvania to scrap these electronic voting machines over hacking fears

“Pennsylvania is going to be under a microscope in 2020. It needs to have voting systems that are demonstrably secure, trustworthy and auditable,” said Susan Greenhalgh, Vice President of Policy and Programs for the National Election Defense Coalition, one of the groups that brought the lawsuit along with Pennsylvania residents. 

More than three years after Russia probed election networks across the nation in advance of the 2016 contest, this is just the latest lawsuit seeking to force states and counties to abandon machines that they say don’t provide a sufficient paper trail to make sure votes were tallied correctly. 

AP Exclusive: New election systems use vulnerable software

AP Exclusive: New election systems use vulnerable software

WASHINGTON (AP) — Pennsylvania’s message was clear: The state was taking a big step to keep its elections from being hacked in 2020. Last April, its top election official told counties they had to update their systems. So far, nearly 60% have taken action, with $14.15 million of mostly federal funds helping counties buy brand-new electoral systems.

But there’s a problem: Many of these new systems still run on old software that will soon be outdated and more vulnerable to hackers.

Read NEDC Statement

Georgia’s new voting system actually decreases election security, say experts

Georgia’s new voting system actually decreases election security, say experts

Earlier this year, Georgia’s Secure, Accessible, and Fair Elections Commission held a public meeting at the state capitol to answer a pressing question: What should Georgia do to replace its aging, touchscreen voting machines, as well as other parts of its election system? In the preceding years, security vulnerabilities in the state’s election system had been repeatedly exposed: by Russian operatives, friendly hackers, and even a Georgia voter who, just days ahead of the 2018 midterms, revealed that anyone could go online and gain access to the state’s voter registration database.

Why federal courts may become the next front in the battle to secure our elections

Why federal courts may become the next front in the battle to secure our elections

Last week, a team of security researchers who run the DefCon hacking convention released a report on voting machines in use around the country that contain structural flaws ripe for exploitation by hackers. Among its dismaying findings, DefCon reported a flaw in one widely used voting tabulator that, if hacked, “could enable an attacker to flip the Electoral College and determine the outcome of a presidential election.”

The Crisis of Election Security

The Crisis of Election Security

It was mid-July 2016 when Neil Jenkins learned that someone had hacked the Illinois Board of Elections. Jenkins was a director in the Office of Cybersecurity and Communications at the Department of Homeland Security, the domestic agency with a congressional mandate to protect “critical infrastructure.” Although election systems were not yet formally designated as such — that wouldn’t happen until January 2017 — it was increasingly clear that the presidential election was becoming a national-security issue.

Top Voting Machine Vendor Admits It Installed Remote-Access Software on Systems Sold to States

Top Voting Machine Vendor Admits It Installed Remote-Access Software on Systems Sold to States

Remote-access software and modems on election equipment 'is the worst decision for security short of leaving ballot boxes on a Moscow street corner.'

The nation's top voting machine maker has admitted in a letter to a federal lawmaker that the company installed remote-access software on election-management systems it sold over a period of six years, raising questions about the security of those systems and the integrity of elections that were conducted with them.

Lawmakers told of growing cyber threat to election systems

Lawmakers told of growing cyber threat to election systems


Lawmakers on Wednesday learned that federal officials have evidence that election-related systems in 21 states were targeted by Russia ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

Members of the Senate Intelligence Committee received the information amid growing concerns on Capitol Hill about the possibility of foreign interference in future electoral processes.

Computer expert: Some voting machines can be directly hacked

Computer expert: Some voting machines can be directly hacked

A computer science professor told the Senate Intelligence Committee Wednesday that voting machines that create an electronic record of the voters' decisions are open to fraud and computer hacking, vulnerabilities that are big enough to potentially change the outcome of some elections.

J. Alex Halderman, professor of computer science at Michigan University, said he and his team began studying "direct-recording electronic" (DRE) voting machines 10 years ago and found that "we could reprogram the machine to invisibly cause any candidate to win. We also created malicious software — vote-stealing code — that could spread from machine-to-machine like a computer virus, and silently change the election outcome."

 

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