While tampering with unofficial results wouldn’t really corrupt an election’s outcome, it could substance misinformation astir some the accuracy of the ballot tally and the integrity of the process. That’s a peculiar interest since the 2020 election, successful which then-President Donald Trump seized connected ample discrepancies betwixt aboriginal returns and last ballot counts to falsely allege wide fraud.
“At slightest six states — Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan and Minnesota — usage modems to transmit results successful a combined 36 counties, according to a POLITICO survey. Rhode Island uses them statewide, and Washington, D.C., uses them citywide. Wisconsin, which the nonprofit predetermination integrity radical Verified Voting identified arsenic utilizing modem-equipped devices, did not respond to inquiries astir whether its counties usage the feature.
While there’ve been nary reports of modems being hacked successful erstwhile elections, the vulnerabilities are good known, and hackers person the tools to exploit them.
And the specified beingness of these modem vulnerabilities could marque it easier for Trump allies to disrupt the midterm elections and aboriginal contests with more unfounded hacking claims, accidental immoderate erstwhile predetermination officials.
“In the existent hyperpolarized atmosphere, modems successful voting machines are present not lone a imaginable people for cyberattacks, but, possibly much importantly, accusation operations seeking to formed uncertainty connected the legitimacy of U.S. elections,” said David Levine, a erstwhile predetermination manager for Ada County, Idaho. He’s present a chap astatine the Alliance for Securing Democracy moving connected elections integrity issues.
“Modem usage expands the menace aboveground country [that] predetermination officials are forced to support against each hazards including cyber, operational mistake[s], misinformation and fairy tales,” said Noah Praetz, erstwhile predetermination manager for Cook County, Ill.
Florida — the tract of a choky Senate contention successful November betwixt Republican incumbent Marco Rubio and Democrat Val Demings — uses modems successful 18 counties, including Broward, the second-most populous.
These states person persisted successful utilizing the modems adjacent though the hacking hazard has been established for years. The Senate Intelligence Committee recommended successful a 2019 report connected Russia’s interference successful the 2016 election that officials region oregon disable immoderate wireless networking capableness successful their voting machines. Multiple states — including Alabama, California, Colorado, Maryland, New York and Virginia — have banned modems.
Modems stay fashionable for 2 large reasons: clip and distance.
Americans don’t similar waiting to larn who won an election. “There is an appetite successful the nationalist for contiguous results, and [using modems] is the champion mode to bash that,” said Paul Lux, the predetermination supervisor successful Okaloosa County, Fla., which uses modems to transmit its predetermination results.
The main alternatives are calling successful ballot totals oregon driving representation cards to the cardinal office. The erstwhile process is error-prone, and aggregate counties said the second process would make hourslong delays.
In Okaloosa County, which stretches from the Gulf of Mexico to the Alabama border, lone 1 large roadworthy connects the predetermination bureau successful the northbound with the 68 percent of registered voters who unrecorded successful the south, Lux said. If canvass workers had to present results by hand, helium said, helium wouldn’t beryllium capable to study results until 11 p.m.
Mark Ard, a spokesperson for Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd, said that without modems, immoderate counties mightiness not beryllium capable to study results until the time aft an election. And delays make misinformation risks arsenic well. Trump and different 2020 predetermination deniers seized connected delays arsenic different excuse to assertion the results were rigged.
Ard and predetermination officials successful different states that usage modems told POLITICO they judge the information risks are overblown.
“I’ve been astatine this occupation present 10 years, and we’ve utilized modems arsenic acold arsenic I tin remember, and we’ve ne'er ever had an issue,” said Travis Weipert, the predetermination supervisor successful Johnson County, Iowa.
Some officials argued their modems debar information risks by utilizing peculiar networks acceptable up for that purpose. But those systems are nary panacea, Wallach said, due to the fact that they’re inactive “placing a batch of spot successful [telecom companies], and that’s precisely the benignant of happening that nation-state adversaries tin and bash regularly compromise.”
Hackers could interruption into the telecom networks carrying the modems’ transmissions and manipulate them en route, akin to however Ukrainian officials person used their power of their ain networks to intercept invading Russian soldiers’ telephone calls. Attackers could besides usage portable devices that emulate compartment towers to intercept modem transmissions.
“We present person to interest astir anybody getting entree to a connection web that is fundamentally open,” said Matt Blaze, a Georgetown University machine subject and instrumentality prof who studies voting systems.
Officials besides cited encryption arsenic a mode to shield ballot information from tampering successful transit. But encryption isn’t foolproof either. In 2007, researchers discovered that voting vendor Hart InterCivic had misconfigured its modems’ encryption truthful that the modems failed to verify their connections.
There’s besides a accidental that hackers could usage a modem transportation arsenic a foothold for planting malware connected the instrumentality that determination offices usage to tally the last counts. But it’s improbable this would compromise authoritative results, due to the fact that of 2 cardinal safeguards: insubstantial ballots and post-election audits that double-check the tallies of those ballots. That said, some states don’t necessitate audits, and immoderate Americans still ballot connected paperless physics voting machines.
Many information experts are optimistic that modems volition yet vanish arsenic portion of a broader propulsion to support elections. “The absorption that we’re going is precise encouraging,” Blaze said. “Removing modems … is portion of that trend.”
There person been a fewer moves already. In 2018, Harris County, Texas, ditched the modems that Wallach and his colleagues had discovered were insecure much than a decennary earlier. Michigan is phasing retired modems successful the 5 counties that inactive usage them. And Santa Rosa County, Fla., won’t usage its modems to transmit results successful November aft doing truthful successful 7 elections since 2018. “We person a batch of radical that are conscionable concerned,” said predetermination supervisor Tappie Villane.
But nary of the different predetermination offices that discussed their modems with POLITICO said they saw a crushed for a change.
Eventually, immoderate of the officials sticking by modems volition person to wantonness them. Last year, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission added a prohibition connected modems to a acceptable of voluntary guidelines that galore states usage arsenic the ground for their voting strategy investigating programs.
It volition instrumentality years, however, for caller instrumentality to beryllium certified to the updated guidelines, and adjacent then, immoderate states whitethorn take not to incorporated the modem prohibition into their ain regulations.
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