Despite members of the government stating that voting machines aren’t online, it turns out that some of them are – 35, to be exact, NBC says.
Kevin Skoglund, a senior technical advisor at the election security advocacy group National Election Defense Coalition, told NBC that his team is “still continuing to find more.” Further, three manufacturing companies that produce tabulators and scanners, admitted that some of their electronic voting equipment contains modems; for example, there are upwards of 14,000 devices called DS200 tabulators, which are manufactured by Election Systems & Software, that are currently in use across the United States.
The modems connect to cell phone networks, which ultimately connect them to the internet, and make them vulnerable to cyberattacks. NBC says the reason why these companies include a modem in their technology is so that the public can get access to unofficial election results faster.
Andrew Appel, a Princeton computer science professor and expert on elections, told NBC that despite any network protections the companies apply to protect their systems, a breach is still inevitable.
“The National Institute of Standards and Technology, which provides cybersecurity frameworks for state and local governments and other organizations, recommends that voting systems should not have wireless network connections,” he said.
Tips for the 2020 Presidential Election
In order to have a fair and successful 2020 voting period during the 2020 presidential election, industry experts urge states to take their means of voting offline.
To start, jurisdictions should be wary about voting machines’ internet capabilities, and whether or not they connect to a network. If they do, it might be a good idea to avoid them. For example, Election Systems & Software advertised its DS200, which as an internal modem, as being certified with the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. However, once a modem is added to these technologies, it becomes de-certified. Many people might not be aware of this, and use the machines to vote anyways, risking the information involved.
Otherwise, Appel and other experts recommend unplugging voting machines altogether, and turning back to paper and pen to vote. From there, a machine can count ballots, rather than risk a cyberattack, and a potential repeat of the 2016 election.
“What we should do is remove all of the unnecessary, hackable pathways, such as modems,” Appel told NBC. “We should not connect our voting machines directly to the computer networks. That is just inviting trouble.”
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