National: Keeping Russia Out of the Voting Booth | The American Prospect
Of all the disturbing questions raised by Russia’s interference in last year’s election, the most alarming may be how a foreign power might hack into the nation’s voting infrastructure. So far there’s no evidence that Russian cyberattacks altered U.S. vote totals in any way. But recent disclosures make clear that Russian intelligence intrusions were much broader and deeper than initially known. And the U.S. election system, while it has strengths, remains vulnerable on several fronts. Aging voting machines, the absence of a paper trail in some states, and spotty audits are all weaknesses that could be exploited in 2018 and 2020. … While most states—36 all told—use machines that produce a paper record, that still leaves 14 states that still operate machines with no voter verifiable paper trail. The absence of paper makes it virtually impossible to cross-check and confirm results after the fact.