Election officials see a range of threats in 2024 cycle

Foreign threats, conspiracies add security worries

ATLANTA — For election officials preparing for the 2024 presidential election, the list of security challenges just keeps growing.

Many of the concerns from four years ago persist: the potential for cyberattacks targeting voter registration systems or websites that report unofficial results, and equipment problems or human errors being amplified by those seeking to undermine confidence in the outcome.

Add to that the fresh risks that have developed since the 2020 election and the false claims of widespread fraud being spread by former president Donald Trump and his allies.

Death threats directed at election workers and breaches of voting equipment inside election offices have raised questions about safety and security. Some states have altered their voting and election laws, expanded legislative control of local elections, and added penalties for election workers who violate rules.

The turmoil has contributed to a wave of retirements and resignations among election staff, creating a vacuum of institutional knowledge in some local election offices.

With Trump running again and already warning that the 2024 vote is “on its way to being another rigged election,” election workers are bracing for a difficult year that will have no margin for error.

Foreign threats

National security experts have warned for years that foreign governments — primarily Russia, China, and Iran — want to undermine the US and see elections as a pathway to do it.

In 2016, Russia sought to interfere with a multi-pronged effort that included accessing and releasing Democratic emails and scanning state voter registration systems for vulnerabilities. Four years later, Iranian hackers obtained voter data and used it to send misleading emails.

In 2022, there were multiple instances in which hackers linked to Iran, China, and Russia connected to election infrastructure, scanned state government websites, and copied voter information, according to a recently declassified report.

While there has been no evidence of any compromises affecting the integrity of US elections, experts say those countries are more motivated than ever given tensions across the globe.

“Election 2024 may be the first presidential election during which multiple authoritarian actors simultaneously attempt to interfere with and influence an election outcome,” Microsoft warned in a November threat assessment.

Election system vulnerabilities

Many of the conspiracy theories that have persisted since Trump lost the 2020 presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden relate to voting technology and claims that equipment was manipulated to steal the vote. There is no evidence of manipulation, and the systems have safeguards to detect problems.

An intensive effort has been underway for several years to build defenses around voting machines and tabulators and develop plans to recover if tampering occurs. Experts are particularly concerned about non-voting systems such as voter registration databases, electronic poll books, and websites that report results because they rely on internet connections.

Experts have warned that a well-timed attack, perhaps using ransomware that locks up computers until payments are made or systems are restored from backups, could disrupt election operations.

Many local election offices have been moving their systems off countywide networks to protect them, but not all have. In early September, election officials in Hinds County, Miss., were preparing for statewide elections when everything came to an abrupt halt.

Workers in the election office were unable to access their computers for about three weeks. The breach of the county’s computers caused a slight delay in processing voter registration forms and pushed back training for poll workers.

Election integrity groups say more needs to be done and point to a series of voting system breaches since the 2020 election that have resulted in proprietary software being distributed among various Trump allies. They want a federal investigation and for authorities to force anyone with copies to hand them over.

Increased protections

Improvements since the 2016 election, in which Trump beat Democrat Hillary Clinton, include replacing outdated and vulnerable voting machines that lacked paper records of every vote cast. In 2020, an estimated 93 percent of ballots cast nationwide produced a paper record, up from 82 percent four years earlier.

After 2016, election systems were added to the list of critical infrastructure in the US, which also includes dams, banks, and nuclear power plants.

In 2018, Congress established the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which provides security reviews. CISA Director Jen Easterly launched a cyber defense initiative in 2021 and last summer said 10 new regional election security advisers would be hired to work directly with local election offices.

Larry Norden, an election expert with the Brennan Center for Justice, said he sees “massive progress” but also said turnover in local election offices has diminished institutional knowledge.

Just 29 percent of local election officials surveyed this year for the Brennan Center were aware of CISA routine vulnerability scans, and just 31 percent were aware of the agency’s physical security assessments.