National: States Need Way More Money to Fix Crumbling Voting Machines | WIRED

THE 2018 MIDTERM elections were hardly a glowing reflection on the state of America’s voting technology. Even after Congress set aside millions of dollars for state election infrastructure last year, voters across the country still waited in hours-long lines to cast their ballots on their precincts’ finicky, outdated voting machines. Now, a new report published by New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice finds that unless state governments and Congress come up with additional funding this year, the situation may not be much better when millions more Americans cast their vote for president in 2020. In a survey that the center disseminated across the country this winter, 121 election officials in 31 states said they need to upgrade their voting machines before 2020—but only about a third of them have enough money to do so. That’s a considerable threat to election security given that 40 states are using machines that are at least a decade old, and 45 states are using equipment that’s not even manufactured anymore. This creates security vulnerabilities that can’t be patched and leads to machines breaking down when the pressure’s on. The faultier these machines are, the more voters are potentially disenfranchised by prohibitively long lines on election day. “We are driving the same car in 2019 that we were driving in 2004, and the maintenance costs are mounting up,” one South Carolina election official told the Brennan Center’s researchers, noting that he feels “lucky” to be able to find spare parts.

National: Senate Democrats investigate cybersecurity of election machines, introduce version of H.R. 1 | InsideCyberSecurity.com

A group of senior Senate Democrats is seeking information on what the three largest manufacturers of U.S. voting machines are doing to secure the systems ahead of the 2020 elections, while the entire Democratic Caucus on Wednesday signed on to sponsor the Senate version of House-passed H.R. 1, the “For the People Act,” which includes language on securing election machines. A letter — signed by Senate Rules ranking member Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Intelligence ranking member Mark Warner (D-VA), Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs ranking member Gary Peters (D-MI), and Armed Services ranking member Jack Reed (D-RI) — was sent Tuesday to voting machine vendors Hart InterCivic, Dominion Voting Systems, and Election Systems and Software, or ES&S. “Despite the progress that has been made, election security experts and federal and state government officials continue to warn that more must be done to fortify our election systems,” the senators wrote. “Of particular concern is the fact that many of the machines that Americans use to vote have not been meaningfully updated in nearly two decades. Although each of your companies has a combination of older legacy machines and newer systems, vulnerabilities in each present a problem for the security of our democracy and they must be addressed.” The senators posed questions on steps the companies are taking to secure their machines ahead of 2020, and how Congress can assist in these efforts; what the plans are for updating “legacy” voting machines; whether the companies would support legislation requiring “expanded use of post-election audits”; if the companies have vulnerability disclosure programs; and if they employ full-time cybersecurity experts.