U.S. Election Technology Is Vulnerable. We’re Still Only Treating the Symptoms.
Threats to U.S. election infrastructure pose grave threats to our democracy. It’s been nearly two decades since the Help America Vote Act created the first guidelines for states to follow when it comes to election administration and provided $3 billion to modernize voting systems. At that time, modernizing meant trading punch cards and lever machines for computers to assist in casting and counting of ballots and the creation of centralized statewide voter registration databases. Today, we are living in a fundamentally changed world, with new challenges, hazards, and threats constantly emerging that can no longer be triaged on a reactionary basis.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency designated the management of elections as a “national critical function.” At the OSET Institute, we call it critical democracy infrastructure. In December 2021 “infrastructure week” finally happened with the passage of a $1 trillion investment in roads, bridges, broadband, energy and other infrastructure projects. The critical infrastructure machinery of our democracy administration is not on that list, however.