Someone has been hacking into voter registration databases and the FBI is on it. After James Comey’s blowing off the evidence collected by his agents of Hillary Clinton’s email crimes, however, there’s considerable cause to be afraid, very afraid, for the legitimacy of the November elections. With the push to make elections more convenient at the price of security, penetration by outside actors has become nearly inevitable. That means one key part of the election process, the actual casting of votes, should be kept offline. If marked electronic ballots can be hacked, Americans can’t help wondering whether an election can be stolen. It wouldn’t be the first time.
The FBI has discovered evidence that foreign hackers recently gained access to the election records of two states, and the bureau warned that election officials everywhere should improve their cybersecurity. The warning doesn’t name the states, but evidence of outside penetration of election systems has turned up in Illinois and Arizona. It’s not exactly confirmation of Donald Trump’s campaign catcall that the election is about to be rigged, but it raises the question of whether the great American tradition of clean elections is about to vanish.
The threat is so great that the Department of Homeland Security is considering taking over election security everywhere. “We should carefully consider whether our election system, our election process, is critical infrastructure like the financial sector, like the power grid,” says Secretary Jeh Johnson. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has written to the director of the FBI asking him to investigate whether Russian agents have been tampering with election processes. With early voting beginning in less than a month, plugging back doors vulnerable to Russia and other hackers may be too little, too late.
Full Article: A vote for low-tech elections – Washington Times.