National

America’s democracy is at risk from more than Russian Twitter trolls. Our voting systems, the information technology that undergirds our elections, are dangerously outdated and vulnerable to attack. And for Finnish data security expert Harri Hursti, the best defense we have might be counting paper ballots. We don’t have to count every vote by hand, he says — just enough to prove with a reasonable standard of certainty that the electronic results are valid. And for Hursti, who founded a string of companies before becoming involved in the area of election security, such a low-tech solution might be our best chance to protect the core mechanisms of our democracy. Hursti is the subject of the new HBO documentary Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America’s Elections, directed by Simon Ardizzone, Russell Michaels and Sarah Teale. The film, which premiered March 26, follows Hursti as he exposes the vulnerabilities of America’s election systems. Watching the doc and learning the extent of those weaknesses won’t necessarily help you sleep at night, but for activists and ethical hackers, the first step in fixing a system is showing that it was broken to begin with. Hursti spoke with TIME in advance of the film’s release, taking a deep look at the realities of American election security, psychological warfare and the information landscape in the age of coronavirus. The interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

National: Nationwide voting by mail will be a massive undertaking say those who’ve done it | Joseph Marks/The Washington Post

It will take a massive effort of time and resources to increase voting by mail across the nation if the coronavirus pandemic is still jeopardizing in-person voting in November. And the $400 million appropriated by Congress is nowhere near enough to make it feasible. That’s the warning from election officials in states that vote almost entirely by mail, who say it took years of careful planning for them to make the transition. “It’s going to be a herculean effort, but failure is not an option,” Washington state Secretary of State Kim Wyman, whose state is among five that vote that way, told me. By contrast, there are 13 states that don’t currently even offer all their voters the option of casting ballots by mail, according to a tally released yesterday by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. The warnings underscore the unprecedented challenge facing officials who are beginning to contemplate a complete overhaul of their election operations during just seven months and in the midst of a global health crisis. The shift to better secure elections against hacking after Russian interference in 2016, by contrast, took place over more than three years and still produced mixed results.

National: Unease at the Polls Over Election Integrity | George Leopold/EE Times

The polling place in the gym at Buzz Aldrin Elementary School in northern Virginia was humming like a well-oiled machine on Super Tuesday morning, March 3. Poll workers were efficiently checking in voters, briskly directing them to cardboard cubicles where citizens filled out paper ballots tallied by electronic vote scanners. I handed my drivers’ license to a poll worker who placed it in a holder while pulling up the county database on a tablet device to confirm my eligibility to vote in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. “State your name and address,” she instructed. I was handed a ballot, directed to a tabletop voting “booth”, filled in the circle next to my choice, placed my ballot in the scanner that verified my vote had been duly recorded. Another poll worker handed me a be-flagged “I Voted” sticker and I was on my way. Exercising the franchise took all of ten minutes. Nothing to it. That is, if you live in the genteel suburbs of Washington, DC. Elsewhere, casting a vote can be an ordeal. Accurate votes counts are becoming more problematic. In many areas, touchscreen voting machines based on electronic pen technologies like “ballot marking devices” remain vulnerable. Recent legislation ostensibly designed to secure the 2020 presidential elections lack safeguards such as encryption, election security experts note.

National: The Coronavirus Could Change How We Vote, In 2020 And Beyond | Lee Drutman/FiveThirtyEight

The 2020 election will likely be different thanks to the new coronavirus. In fact, COVID-19 has already left its mark on the Democratic nomination race, with many states postponing their primaries. So it’s likely that in the coming months, states will begin to move toward allowing more voters to mail in their ballots, or at least cast votes early to spread people out. It’s entirely possible that Election Day 2020 will be more like Election Month (or perhaps months, depending on how long it takes to count the ballots). That means between now and November, states and election administrators are going to have to make lots of decisions about how they conduct elections. How they manage this may affect who votes and whose vote is counted, how campaigns operate, and perhaps even the level of uncertainty in the polls. In short, the mechanisms of the voting process may turn out to be as important this year as what the candidates say. We’re not starting from scratch, however. In 2016, roughly two in five voters cast their ballots early or by mail, which marked a record share of ballots cast by methods other than in person on Election Day.

National: Facebook, Google and Twitter Struggle to Handle November’s Election | Kevin Roose, Sheera Frenkel and Nicole Perlroth/The New York Times

The day after the New Hampshire primary last month, Facebook’s security team removed a network of fake accounts that originated in Iran, which had posted divisive partisan messages about the U.S. election inside private Facebook groups. Hours later, the social network learned the campaign of Michael R. Bloomberg, the billionaire former New York mayor, had sidestepped its political ad process by directly paying Instagram meme accounts to post in support of his presidential bid. That same day, a pro-Trump group called the Committee to Defend the President, which had previously run misleading Facebook ads, was found to be promoting a photo that falsely claimed to show Bernie Sanders supporters holding signs with divisive slogans such as “Illegal Aliens Deserve the Same as Our Veterans.” Facebook, Twitter, Google and other big tech companies have spent the past three years working to avoid a repeat of 2016, when their platforms were overrun by Russian trolls and used to amplify America’s partisan divide. The internet giants have since collectively spent billions of dollars hiring staff, fortifying their systems and developing new policies to prevent election meddling. But as the events of just one day — Feb. 12 — at Facebook showed, although the companies are better equipped to deal with the types of interference they faced in 2016, they are struggling to handle the new challenges of 2020.

National: Pandemic pushes states to vote-by-mail, bringing new challenges | Gopal Ratnam/Roll Call

States and local election jurisdictions across the country are preparing for a surge in voting by mail this November stemming from people’s reluctance to gather in crowds or even venture out if the coronavirus pandemic persists through late fall. The switch to mail-in ballots is likely to heighten security challenges both on cyber and physical fronts. While many western states including Oregon, Washington, Colorado and parts of California already rely heavily on vote-by-mail, states east of the Mississippi are likely to see an increase in absentee voter requests and for vote-by-mail, and are preparing for that, Ben Hovland, chairman of the Election Assistance Commission, told CQ Roll Call in an interview. In conference calls with state officials, Hovland said he has heard them discuss changes in processes and procedures to prepare for a surge in vote-by-mail and the risks that could stem from the shift. “It adds to an already difficult job that state election officials face,” Hovland said. “People need to be aware of potential new risk vectors in as far as some jurisdictions are talking about creating an online portal for voters to request mail-in ballots.”

National: Coronavirus emerges as major threat to U.S. election process | John Whitesides and Jarrett Renshaw/Reuters

U.S. election officials looking to construct a safe voting system in a worsening coronavirus pandemic are confronting a grim reality: there may not be enough time, money or political will to make it happen by the November election. The possibility the pandemic could last into the fall, or flare again as millions of voters are set to choose the nation’s next president, has state and local officials scrambling for alternatives to help keep voters safe. The most-discussed proposals are to make mail-in voting available to all eligible voters nationwide, and to expand early in-person voting to limit the crowds on Election Day. But election officials say those changes will be costly and complex in a country where traditional voting remains ingrained. About six of every 10 ballots were cast in person on Election Day in 2016, Census data shows. Democrats fell far short in their effort to include at least $2 billion to help virus-proof the November elections as part of a $2.2-trillion coronavirus stimulus bill that was passed by the U.S. House on Friday. The package devotes $400 million to bolster vote by mail and early voting, expand facilities and hire more poll workers.

National: States Explore More Vote-By-Mail Options to Cope With Coronavirus | Alexa Corse and Dustin Volz/Wall StreetJournal

States are exploring ways to expand voting by mail and early voting ahead of the November general election to make sure balloting proceeds if the coronavirus pandemic persists. Election officials from state and local governments across the country held conference calls over the past week with the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies on the logistical, financial and legal obstacles to rolling out expanded vote-by-mail initiatives, according to people who participated in the calls. A call last Friday featuring the U.S. Postal Service looked at the feasibility of implementing widespread mail voting, including the costs for mail-in ballot services and whether they could be reduced. Another call this week included the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to assess the coronavirus threat over the rest of the year. Early voting and voting by mail have increased across the country over the past two decades. Election experts said the coronavirus pandemic could supercharge that trend, overhauling how elections are conducted and accelerating the shift away from voting in person at a local polling site on Election Day.

National: It’s probably game over for more election security before November elections | Joseph Marks/The Washington Post

Lawmakers’ failure to impose any new security rules on state election officials in the $2.2 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill probably signals the end of any serious chance to pass significant election security changes before November. The bill includes $400 million to protect elections during the pandemic. But it doesn’t contain any requirements sought by Democrats that the money be used to expand voting by mail or early voting options. With the coronavirus spreading, several states delayed their primaries and there are worries that in-person voting may be compromised, too. But the coronavirus stimulus legislation is the third such no-strings attached cash infusion for election security since the 2016 contest was marred by a Russian hacking and disinformation operation. And with three strikes against them on efforts to mandate changes such as paper ballots, post-election audits and cybersecurity reviews, election security hawks are likely out — at least until after November. “This was the last chance for coordinated federal action to help secure the 2020 election and unfortunately Congress has once again blown its chance,” Alex Halderman, an election security expert and computer science professor at the University of Michigan, told me. “It’s not surprising, but it ought to be scandalous that we’ve gone four years without Congress passing election security legislation.”

National: New HBO documentary Kill Chain shows the cyberwar on America’s elections is very real | John Doyle/The Globe and Mail

As though we didn’t all have enough to make us anxious, a new documentary suggests that the interference in 2016 has been underestimated and that the 2020 election there is extremely vulnerable. It’s about the United States, not about us, but it isn’t necessary to explain why it all matters. Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America’s Elections (Thursday HBO/Crave 9 p.m.) is a chilling look at the security of election technology. “Everything is hackable” is the message from the main software expert in the program. He explains the how and why. Fifteen years ago he demonstrated how, to one local election authority, and did it for them. People were shocked. Not much changed. The documentary is dense with information but succeeds in making a tangled story about technology easily understood. At times it’s jam-packed with jargon and at other times it’s like an understated episode of Homeland. The main figure is one Harri Hursti, a Finnish-born computer programmer and one of the world’s leading experts on data security. (If you think the doc is riddled with paranoia, just look up Hursti and his qualifications.) He’s very even-tempered and calm but you could forgive him for being mad as hell. At issue is the U.S. voting system. It’s locally run, without national supervision of standards. In fact it’s haphazard and kind-of chaotic. That’s why certain parties were able to assert with strange confidence that not a single vote had been changed by outside forces in 2016. It’s so chaotic, it must be near-impossible to manipulate, right?

National: Senate Democrats vow to keep pushing for more funds for mail-in voting | Maggie Miller/The Hill

Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) vowed on Thursday to keep pushing for additional funding for states to boost their mail-in voting efforts in the midst of the coronavirus crisis. The pledge by Klobuchar and Wyden comes a day after the Senate unanimously approved a $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill that included $400 million for states to enhance mail-in voting and other efforts to keep elections stable despite the ongoing pandemic. For the two senators, and for other election advocates, the funding level fell woefully short of the $2 billion they had pressed the Senate to include for elections earlier this week. “Clearly when you get $400 million in a bill, it is a priority, but we need to get the secretaries of State what they are looking for,” Klobuchar told reporters during a press call on Thursday, stressing that “we are in the middle of a crisis.” The amount was far less than the $4 billion proposed in the stimulus bill rolled out by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for elections earlier this week.

National: Coronavirus ‘worst-case scenario’: Could the presidential vote be done by mail? | Alex Seitz-Wald/NBC

If the coronavirus pandemic continues to make in-person voting virtually impossible by November, conducting the 2020 presidential election largely by mail isn’t out of the question. Advocates say a massive expansion of vote-by-mail is technically feasible, but may require more time, money and political willpower than is available, with the $400 million included in Congress’ new stimulus bill just the beginning of the need. “In my view, with the right leadership and with the right amount of funding by the federal government, most states would be able to go to a vote-by-mail system for November — if we begin planning now,” said Jocelyn Benson, the secretary of state in Michigan, where vote-by-mail has exploded in popularity since voters there approved a referendum in 2018 to allow anyone to request a mail-in absentee ballot. “In this extraordinary, unprecedented moment, there is an opportunity,” Benson added.An American presidential election has never been postponed or canceled, but a majority of poll workers are over the age of 60, a group at heightened risk for COVID-19, and health officials have discouraged crowds like the kind that are generally unavoidable at polling places. “It’s either going to be vote-by-mail or nothing if we have to deal with a worst-case scenario,” Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who is sponsoring an emergency bill to expand vote-by-mail, told reporters on a conference call.

National: Coronavirus Relief Bill Includes $400 Million To Protect Elections | Pam Fessler/NPR

The Senate coronavirus relief bill now under consideration would give states $400 million to protect upcoming elections against the pandemic threat. The money, far less than the $4 billion some Democrats had wanted, would allow states to expand mail-in and early voting, as well as online voter registration. The money could also be used to help secure in-person voting sites. Primaries and other elections have been postponed in more than a dozen states so far because of concerns about the coronavirus. Several states – including Ohio, Georgia and West Virginia – have announced that they will send absentee ballot applications to all registered voters so they do not have to vote in person. The package does not require states to offer 15 days of early voting, no-excuse absentee voting and other changes some Democrats had sought. Congressional Republicans, as well as state officials, oppose imposing federal requirements on elections, which are traditionally run by the states.

National: America’s Love Affair with Paperless Voting Is Over. Here’s Why | Luca Ropek/Government Technology

Before the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) took over as the single biggest threat to the 2020 presidential election, the security of state voting infrastructure was chief among the concerns held by many elected officials. Since 2016, foreign interference in American elections has been a critical concern, and direct-recording electronic (DRE) voting systems — or paperless voting machines — are increasingly viewed as a critical target that foreign adversaries might exploit. Touchscreen and electronic, the machines were once considered the most efficient, credible means to tabulate elections, but over the years many facets of them — in particular their lack of an auditable paper trail — have led experts to warn against their adoption. Hackers could gain entry, change votes and sway elections, cyberprofessionals fear. Here’s a look at how DREs became such a prominent fixture of U.S. voting infrastructure, and why they have since seen a precipitous decline in use as states ditch them for old-fashioned paper.

National: States would get $400 million to run elections under COVID-19 threat | Derek B. Johnson/FCW

The $2 trillion economic relief package passed by the Senate March 25 would set aside $400 million for states and localities to restructure their election processes to deal with the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, but some lawmakers and election security experts say the sum is paltry compared to what is needed. The Election Assistance Commission is charged with distributing grants on a per capita basis within 30 days of passage. The bill does require that each state provide a report to EAC at least 20 days out from their election, detailing how they spent their share and how it allowed them “to prevent, prepare for and respond to the coronavirus.” The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, which examines election security and integrity issues, calculated that states need more funding to expand vote-by-mail infrastructure.

National: Hack the vote: terrifying film shows how vulnerable US elections are | Adrian Horton/The Guardian

Even as much of America grinds to a halt, coronavirus has yet to derail the date of the 2020 election. Which introduces a perhaps underestimated terror, as explained in one of the more deceptively scary documentaries to drop in recent weeks: the vulnerable voting machine. That seemingly benign piece of equipment – the hardware of American democracy – is, as several experts explain in HBO’s Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America’s Elections, nothing more than an obsolete computer. And these machines’ vulnerabilities to hacking are “terrifying”, Sarah Teale, co-director along with Simon Ardizzone and Russell Michaels, told the Guardian. America’s current election infrastructure is, as Kill Chain explains, a prescription for disaster – an outdated, willfully naive system no more prepared for attack than four years ago. Like After Truth: Disinformation and the Cost of Fake News, another HBO documentary which premiered last week and focused on the threat of disinformation on American democracy, Kill Chain re-examines foreign interference in the 2016 election with critical and scientific distance. The film follows the liabilities of the American democratic system even further than fake news, to its basic infrastructure: the machines in poll booths across the country, the very method through which votes are tallied, the databases in which voter data – name, address, eligibility – are stored.

National: Stimulus Money to Protect Elections Falls Short, Critics Say | Michael Wines/The New York Times

The $2 trillion stimulus package that appeared likely to be approved by the Senate on Wednesday contains $400 million to address one of the most uncertain impacts of the coronavirus outbreak — its potential to wreak havoc with voting, including the presidential election in November. The figure falls far short of what state officials and voting rights experts have said is needed to ensure a safe and accurate count if the virus keeps millions of people away from polling places in primary elections and on Election Day. The $400 million in the stimulus package is one-fifth of the $2 billion that voting experts said was needed and that some Democrats had sought. The money could only be used to help states create and staff new polling places to reduce crowding, or to increase opportunities to register online and vote by mail, according to a Senate official who declined to be named because he was not authorized to talk about specifics of the legislation. Voting-rights advocates said the money was a shadow of the amount needed to ensure that the November general election goes smoothly if the pandemic has not ebbed. “It’s a start, but inadequate to the crisis,” Michael Waldman, the president of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, said of the proposal. “If Congress doesn’t provide full funding, we could have a fiasco in November.”

National: Vote-by-Mail Gains Momentum, But It’s Not Fast, Cheap, or Easy | Ryan Teague Beckwith/Bloomberg

The coronavirus outbreak that has forced Americans to retreat to their homes and brought the economy to a standstill also threatens to upend the presidential election. Multiple states have rescheduled their spring primaries as the number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 keeps climbing. Some polling places in states that held primaries on March 17 were hastily closed; at others, workers scrambled to disinfect voting machines and keep people 6 feet apart in line. Voters were encouraged by officials to avoid the health risks of in-person voting entirely—by casting their ballots by mail. The pandemic has prompted new attempts to expand mail-in voting, a trend that has been slowly building over the last two decades. A bill introduced on March 18 by Oregon Senator Ron Wyden—the first U.S. senator elected in a statewide mail-in election—and Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar would require states to allow mail-in and early voting during a pandemic or natural disaster and would provide funding for the cost of ballots and postage, among other things. The stimulus bill passed on March 25 includes $400 million for states to allow vote by mail, expand early voting and online registration, and hire more workers, but it doesn’t include a mandate.

National: Cybersecurity Experts Say Hacking Risk Is High for Mobile Voting | Kartikay Mehrotra/Bloomberg

While Senators Amy Klobuchar and Ron Wyden push to expand vote-by-mail programs, a small group of companies argue for an alternative, one they claim will boost voter participation nationwide: mobile voting. Jurisdictions in at least 15 states are planning to use mobile balloting in a limited capacity in 2020 to account for overseas voters and those with disabilities. Proponents of a digital electorate hope the coronavirus spurs adoption of their technology. The virus has provided an “opportunity,” says Bradley Tusk, chief executive officer of Tusk Holdings and a supporter of mobile voting: “People are being told by the government not to congregate, and that’s a pretty clear directive not to go vote.” Tusk, who says he hasn’t invested in any mobile voting companies, has spent “in the low seven figures” helping local governments cover the costs of adopting the systems. Massachusetts Institute of Technology doctoral student Michael Specter describes Tusk’s position as a “false dichotomy” that ignores postal ballots. He and his colleagues say mobile voting technology is unproven and opens the door to cyber risks. A mobile voting app called Voatz has already been used in federal, local, and partywide elections in Denver, Oregon, Utah, and West Virginia. In a paper published in March, cybersecurity research firm Trail of Bits discovered 79 flaws in the Voatz system, including one that allows someone armed with the proper credentials to alter votes. The paper, funded in part by Tusk and Voatz, expanded on findings published in February by Specter and his MIT colleague James Koppel.

National: Coronavirus response includes $400 million in election assistance. Will it be enough? | Bridget Bowman/Roll Call

A sweeping federal spending package responding to the new coronavirus pandemic will include millions to help states administer elections, but some fear it will not be enough to prevent chaos in November. The enormous spending bill expected to be released Wednesday morning will include $400 million in election assistance, according to two sources who have seen a summary of the bill from appropriators. That figure is still a fraction of the $2 billion the Brennan Center for Justice estimated is necessary for states to prepare for a surge of voters casting ballots by mail and to ensure safe in-person voting. Ben Hovland, the chairman of the Election Assistance Commission, said on Tuesday before the deal was announced that it is difficult to determine how much federal assistance is necessary to prepare states for November. “From what I’ve been hearing from state and local election officials around the country, I think the number is closer to $2 billion,” he added. Election officials are already scrambling to adjust to the pandemic, postponing primaries and stressing absentee voting options so voters can avoid polling places. To curb the spread of the virus, public health officials have recommended gatherings not exceed 10 people.

National: Senate stimulus package includes $400 million to help run elections amid the pandemic | Amy Gardner and Mike DeBonis /The Washington Post

A $2 trillion stimulus deal reached in the Senate on Wednesday includes $400 million of election assistance for states now racing to protect voting from possible disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic — far less than Democrats said would be necessary to prepare for November’s elections. The money will be distributed through the federal Election Assistance Commission, and states will be required to report back to the EAC on how they plan to spend the money “to prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus.” The Senate language, which faces a vote in the House as early as Thursday, does not include any of the mandates that Democrats had hoped to impose on states as a condition of receiving the money. Those include requiring them to make mail-in voting available to everyone and, if an election is held during a national emergency, sending a mail-in ballot to every registered voter. Senate Republicans had balked at those requirements, saying that elections should be administered by state and local governments. A GOP summary of the bill said that Senate Democrats were seeking to “override state control of elections and create a federal mandate for early and mail-in-voting.”

National: States surge mail-in voting for delayed primaries as coronavirus pandemic intensifies | Joseph Marks/The Washington Post

States including Georgia, West Virginia and Ohio are rushing to dramatically ramp up mail-in voting for primary contests during the coronavirus pandemic — even with no guarantee Congress will help foot the bill. Those states are all planning to spend millions of dollars to send absentee ballot applications to all their registered voters in anticipation of largely mail-in primaries that will be unlike any their states have ever conducted. The efforts come as congressional leaders continue to wrangle over whether the federal government should help states increase mail-in voting amid the pandemic and if Democrats can use the crisis to mandate reforms to improve ballot access and security. Senate leaders announced an agreement early today on a $2 trillion stimulus bill to respond to the pandemic but have yet to release details on whether the bill contains new election funding. Senators are likely to vote on the measure later today but House action could take longer. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) (told NBC News’s Andrea Mitchell yesterday the deal then under discussion fell far short of the $4 billion Democrats requested for election officials, but her office didn’t answer queries about what actually made it into the deal. The state efforts mark a huge logistical and financial undertaking by officials struggling to protect democratic processes under conditions that make in-person voting extremely difficult if not dangerous.

National: Stimulus Bill Has $400 Million in Election Help for States | Alyza Sebenius and Erik Wasson/Bloomberg

The U.S. economic stimulus package will include $400 million to help states grapple with 2020 voting amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to two people familiar with the bill. The funds would allow states to increase the ability to vote by mail, and expand early voting and on-line registration. The provision would also make in-person voting safer by allowing states to create additional voting facilities and increase the number of poll workers, according to a Senate aide who has seen a summary of the legislation but declined to be identified discussing the matter. The Trump administration struck a deal early Wednesday with Senate Democrats and Republicans on an historic rescue package with more than $2 trillion in spending and tax breaks to bolster the hobbled U.S. economy and fund a nationwide effort to stem the coronavirus. The bill does not create a national requirement for voting by mail, which some Democrats had asked for but Republicans objected to. It calls on states to make decisions about how best to prepare voting in 2020.

National: New Documentary Debuting Tonight Explores Weaknesses In U.S. Election Technology | Jane Levere/Forbes