Report: Little Progress Since 2016 To Replace Old, Vulnerable Voting Machines In United States

We've know for some time that a sizeable portion of voting machines in the United States are vulnerable to hacking and errors. Too many states, cities, and town use antiquated equipment or equipment without paper backups. The latter makes re-counts impossible.

Has any progress been made to fix the vulnerabilities? The Brennan Center For Justice (BCJ) reported:

"... despite manifold warnings about election hacking for the past two years, the country has made remarkably little progress since the 2016 election in replacing antiquated, vulnerable voting machines — and has done even less to ensure that our country can recover from a successful cyberattack against those machines."

It is important to remember this warning in January 2017 from the Director of National Intelligence (DNI):

"Russian effortsto influence the 2016 US presidential election represent the most recent expression of Moscow’s longstanding desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order, but these activities demonstrated a significant escalation in directness, level of activity, and scope of effort compared to previous operations. We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process... Russian intelligence accessed elements of multiple state or local electoral boards. Since early 2014, Russian intelligence has researched US electoral processes and related technology and equipment. DHS assesses that the types of systems we observed Russian actors targeting or compromising are not involved in vote tallying... We assess Moscow will apply lessons learned from its Putin-ordered campaign aimed at the US presidential election to future influence efforts worldwide, including against US allies and their election processes... "

Detailed findings in the BCJ report about the lack of progress:

1. "This year, most states will use computerized voting machines that are at least 10 years old, and which election officials say must be replaced before 2020.
   While the lifespan of any electronic voting machine varies, systems over a decade old are far more likely to need to be replaced, for both security and reliability reasons... older machines are more likely to use outdated software like Windows 2000. Using obsolete software poses serious security risks: vendors may no longer write security patches for it; jurisdictions cannot replace critical hardware that is failing because it is incompatible with their new, more secure hardware... In 2016, jurisdictions in 44 states used voting machines that were at least a decade old. Election officials in 31 of those states said they needed to replace that equipment by 2020... This year, 41 states will be using systems that are at least a decade old, and officials in 33 say they must replace their machines by 2020. In most cases, elections officials do not yet have adequate funds to do so..."
2. "Since 2016, only one state has replaced its paperless electronic voting machines statewide.
   Security experts have long warned about the dangers of continuing to use paperless electronic voting machines. These machines do not produce a paper record that can be reviewed by the voter, and they do not allow election officials and the public to confirm electronic vote totals. Therefore, votes cast on them could be lost or changed without notice... In 2016, 14 states (Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia) used paperless electronic machines as the primary polling place equipment in at least some counties and towns. Five of these states used paperless machines statewide. By 2018 these numbers have barely changed: 13 states will still use paperless voting machines, and 5 will continue to use such systems statewide. Only Virginia decertified and replaced all of its paperless systems..."
3. "Only three states mandate post-election audits to provide a high-level of confidence in the accuracy of the final vote tally.
   Paper records of votes have limited value against a cyberattack if they are not used to check the accuracy of the software-generated total to confirm that the veracity of election results. In the last few years, statisticians, cybersecurity professionals, and election experts have made substantial advances in developing techniques to use post-election audits of voter verified paper records to identify a computer error or fraud that could change the outcome of a contest... Specifically, “risk limiting audits” — a process that employs statistical models to consistently provide a high level of confidence in the accuracy of the final vote tally – are now considered the “gold standard” of post-election audits by experts... Despite this fact, risk limiting audits are required in only three states: Colorado, New Mexico, and Rhode Island. While 13 state legislatures are currently considering new post-election audit bills, since the 2016 election, only one — Rhode Island — has enacted a new risk limiting audit requirement."
4. "43 states are using machines that are no longer manufactured.
   The problem of maintaining secure and reliable voting machines is particularly challenging in the many jurisdictions that use machines models that are no longer produced. In 2015... the Brennan Center estimated that 43 states and the District of Columbia were using machines that are no longer manufactured. In 2018, that number has not changed. A primary challenge of using machines no longer manufactured is finding replacement parts and the technicians who can repair them. These difficulties make systems less reliable and secure... In a recent interview with the Brennan Center, Neal Kelley, registrar of voters for Orange County, California, explained that after years of cannibalizing old machines and hoarding spare parts, he is now forced to take systems out of service when they fail..."

That is embarrassing for a country that prides itself on having an effective democracy. According to BCJ, the solution would be for Congress to fund via grants the replacement of paperless and antiquated equipment; plus fund post-election audits.

Rather than protect the integrity of our democracy, the government passed a massive tax cut which will increase federal deficits during the coming years while pursuing both a costly military parade and an unfunded border wall. Seems like questionable priorities to me. What do you think?

Comments

[George]

Everyone:
The Elections Department in Boston, Massachusetts shared the following information via Twitter:

"Boston Elections @BostonElections 19h19 hours ago
Replying to @IveBeenMugged

Post Election audits are a great idea. MA law requires them after each presidential general election. In 2016 we conducted post election hand counted audits of 8 randomly selected precincts."

Residents in other cities, towns, and states may want to contact their local elections department.

George
Editor
http://ivebeenmugged.typepad.com