{"id":8466,"date":"2022-07-28T16:19:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-28T16:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=8466"},"modified":"2022-07-28T16:19:00","modified_gmt":"2022-07-28T16:19:00","slug":"elections-are-too-online","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=8466","title":{"rendered":"Elections Are Too Online"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“In theory, voting machines are already offline, even air-gapped<\/a>. In practice, however, “many polling places around the country transmit voting results to their county election offices via modems embedded in or connected to their voting machines,” The New York Times<\/em>reported<\/a> in 2018, and that’s a point of internet access. Independent investigators in 2019 said they found<\/a> “nearly three dozen backend election systems in 10 states connected to the internet,” including systems in swing states Wisconsin, Michigan, and Florida\u2014just a “few” weak points. The nonpartisan National Election Defense Coalition says the<\/a> “assertion that voting machines or voting systems can’t be hacked by remote attackers because they are ‘not connected to the internet'” is a “myth” and has called for<\/a> results to be transmitted by offline methods, like USB sticks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That sort of tool would work because the proposal here isn’t that we return to paper ballots in a wooden box or hand-written voter rolls. Paper and the trail it leaves<\/a> have an important place<\/a> in electoral security, but I’m not suggesting a completely nondigital approach. We can still have machines as the main counting mechanism, a useful timesaver in uncontested races. Likewise, election authorities can continue to manage voter databases with computers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Think 1990, not 1890\u2014there’s no need to go full Luddite. But we should disconnect our voting processes from the internet where it’s feasible. We already know online voting is insecure<\/a>, and given the detrimental effects even small hacks could have on Americans’ confidence in our election outcomes, we’d be wise to harden<\/a> electoral targets against digital attacks.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Elections Are Too Online<\/a><\/blockquote>