Top computer researchers gave a startling presentation recently about how to intercept and switch votes on emailed ballots, but officials in the 30 or so states said the ease with which votes could be changed wouldn’t alter their plans to continue offering electronic voting in some fashion.
Two states — Washington and Alaska — have ended their statewide online voting systems.
The developments, amid mounting fears that Russians or others will try to hack the 2018 midterm elections, could heighten pressure on officials on other U.S. states to reconsider their commitment to online voting despite repeated admonitions from cybersecurity experts.
But a McClatchy survey of election officials in a number of states that permit military and overseas voters to send in ballots by email or fax — including Alabama, Kansas, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas — produced no immediate signs that any will budge on the issue. Some chief election officers are handcuffed from making changes, even in the name of security, by state laws permitting email and fax voting.
At the world’s largest and longest-running hacker convention, two researchers from a Portland, Ore., nonpartisan group that studies election security showed how, in about two hours, they could set up a sham server and program it to intercept and alter ballots attached to emails.
