With the big voting day rapidly approaching, can the security of the election still be shored up? If so, how?
Following the Black Hat keynote about voting security, we wonder how fixing elections might be possible in the next few months amidst pressure of U.S. elections rapidly approaching, requiring massive, coordinated effort at immense expense. Is that possible? If so, how likely?
It’s hard to quick-fix a many-headed monster decades in the making.
Since each state has its own say about running its own election, with predictably differing approaches, it all filters upward to create a federal mess. That, coupled with the impracticality of building something secure quickly on tight budgets, and with reduced public mobility during a pandemic, you can see the problem.
No pressure.
Add to that the training cycle needed to get a whole multitude of energized volunteers up to speed on whatever systems are to be replaced in record time.
What to do? Folks out in Oregon dust off a rousing chorus of “paper ballots only!” But can the rest of the states in a federal election year do the same? Hardly. With fewer than 100 days to go, the federal government couldn’t hand out free beer to the electorate, let alone overhaul to paper.
And how would you staff massive change? Many election volunteers would probably have a difficult time setting up and securing a home router, so they can’t be reliably trusted to stop election hacking with a few tools, even if they had the time and inclination.
At Black Hat you get reamed for even mentioning black fixing voting boiling ocean
