How Hackers Could Destroy Election Day

 

By Shane Harris

Stealing and leaking emails from the Democratic National Committee could be just the start. Hacking the presidential election itself could be next, a bipartisan group of former intelligence and security officials recently warned. Whoever was behind the DNC hack also could target voting machines and the systems for tabulating votes, which are dangerously insecure.

“Election officials at every level of government should take this lesson to heart: our electoral process could be a target for reckless foreign governments and terrorist groups,” wrote 31 members of the Aspen Institute Homeland Security Group, which includes a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and a former secretary of Homeland Security.

That echoes warnings computer security experts have been sounding for more than a decade: that the system for casting and counting votes in this country is also ripe for mischief.

It also appears to mirror the concerns of one presidential candidate.

“I’m afraid the election’s going to be rigged. I have to be honest,” Donald Trump told voters in the key swing state of Ohio this week. Trump has complained before about bias and interference in the Republican nominating process, but this was the first time he claimed that the general election would be targeted. 

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Source: The Daily Beast