ATLANTA — Voting machines have been on the heart of an online of conspiracy theories for the reason that 2020 election, with false claims that they had been rigged to steal the presidency from Donald Trump.
There was no proof of widespread fraud or rigged voting machines within the election, and a number of audits in battleground states the place the Republican president contested his loss to Democrat Joe Biden confirmed that the outcomes had been correct. In 2023, Fox News agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems, one of many largest voting machine firms, $787 million to keep away from a trial in a defamation lawsuit.
In the years since his defeat, Trump and his allies have continued to sow doubt about election tools. State and native election officers have sought to reply by explaining the layers of protections surrounding voting programs and the measures they’ve in place to conduct truthful and correct elections.
In November’s presidential election, almost all ballots can have a paper report that can be utilized to get an correct depend even within the occasion of errors or cyberattacks.
What is a voting machine?
Election officers depend on varied technological instruments. Every workplace does issues a little bit otherwise.
Officials depend on a voter registration system that could be a database of registered voters and have an election administration system that employees use to create, difficulty and monitor ballots. They additionally use an election evening reporting system that stories unofficial outcomes. Many jurisdictions use digital voter registers to display screen voters at polling locations.
All of this relies on software program and computer systems, a dependency that poses dangers that officers work to establish and handle. For instance, election officers typically isolate vital programs from the Internet and use storage gadgets, reminiscent of safe USB sticks, to switch knowledge. They restrict entry to delicate tools to solely those that want it and have logs that monitor and monitor the gadgets.
When an Internet connection is required, election officers typically use non-public networks to restrict the danger of malicious exercise and take different steps to scan their programs for potential vulnerabilities and threats.
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Voters in a lot of the nation fill out ballots by hand, then the poll might be scanned and counted electronically. Some locations, largely small cities within the Northeast, will depend their ballots manually.
In some areas, voters use a pc to electronically mark their ballots after which get a printout of their selections that they insert right into a scanner for counting. In different instances, the vote is solid electronically and a paper register summarizing the votes solid is printed. That report is then out there if a handbook depend is required.
Are the voting machines related to the Internet?
With a number of exceptions, no. There are some jurisdictions in some states that enable poll scanners at polling locations to transmit unofficial outcomes, utilizing a personal cell community, after voting has ended on Election Day and reminiscence playing cards containing the vote tallies have been eliminated .
Election officers who enable this say it permits for faster reporting of unofficial election outcomes on election evening. They say paper poll paperwork are used to authenticate outcomes throughout post-election critiques and that such paperwork could be essential for a recount if mandatory.
Cybersecurity specialists have mentioned that is an pointless threat and must be prohibited.
Are voting machines secure?
Election officers say they’ve lengthy labored to strengthen the safety of their election tools after an effort by Russia to scan state voter registration programs for vulnerabilities in 2016.
There was no proof then that the info had been modified or deleted, but it surely led the federal authorities to declare the nation’s election programs vital infrastructure. This permits the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to offer free cybersecurity critiques and vulnerability testing to election places of work nationwide.
“Today, eight years later, because of all the unbelievable work election officers have achieved to strengthen the safety and resilience of our election course of, election infrastructure has by no means been safer and the election stakeholder group has by no means been so robust,” the company director mentioned. Jen Easterly, instructed reporters in September.
Cybersecurity specialists have referred to as for extra to be achieved and for election officers to restrict the usage of sure applied sciences, significantly machines that mark ballots for voters. An extended courtroom battle in Georgia sought to pressure the state to do away with these machines in favor of hand-marked paper ballots.
Experts additionally raised explicit concern a couple of sequence of safety breaches that occurred after the 2020 election as Trump allies sought to entry voting programs in Georgia and elsewhere whereas making an attempt to show their unsubstantiated claims. Experts warned that the general public launch of vital election software program because of the breaches raised “critical threats” and referred to as for a federal investigation.
How do election officers guarantee accuracy?
Election officers say safeguards are in place to make sure voting programs should not manipulated. This begins with bodily safety, reminiscent of locked rooms with restricted entry and the usage of tamper-evident seals. Additionally, voting tools is examined earlier than the election, a course of that features operating take a look at ballots by means of the tools to make sure votes are counted appropriately.
Post-election critiques are performed to establish any errors or errors that will have occurred.
According to a report from the Brennan Center for Justice based mostly on knowledge collected by Verified Voting, a nonpartisan group that tracks voting tools within the United States, about 98% of all ballots solid on this 12 months’s election will embody a paper report. Officials say that is necessary to make sure that any errors or cyberattacks do not forestall officers from producing an correct vote report.
