Security of the United States 2020 Electoral System and Process

By Kayla Deruiter on October 28, 2020

Executive Summary:

With the presidential election coming up people are skeptical about the security of the election system and the persistent foreign threat. President Donald Trump continues to claim how the voting process this year is ‘rigged’ and is prone to voter fraud. This is likely due to the pandemic making the voting process different this election year with a lot of people mailing in ballots instead of in person voting polls. The FBI and Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity agency give out tips to the public on how to counter these threats and ensure that the “election system remains resilient” this year to any threats or manipulations to the voting process (Johnson, 2020). There are multiple things to look out for during this election year so that voters can be prepared including disinformation online, fake or spoofed email accounts and websites, and false claims of hacked voter information. The cyber threats to the election could slow down the voting process, and compromise the results (Tucker, 2020).

Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) Details:

The director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center William Evanina states, “To be clear, it would be very difficult for adversaries to interfere with, or manipulate, voting results at scale.”(Johnson, 2020). The Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is confident in the security of the election and voters and confirms that they have been working on election security efforts over the past years to prevent any interruptions or faulty votes during the time of the election (Johnson, 2020).

President Trump’s re-election campaign is to maintain integrity and constantly refers to the mail-in voting as a ‘disaster’, although there is no evidence that the election system has been manipulated by any fraudulent acts recently. FBI Director Christopher Wray says that they have “not seen, historically, any kind of coordinated national voter fraud effort in a major election, whether it’s by mail or otherwise.” (Tucker, 2020). The FBI is taking measures to ensure that safeguarding the votes and election is the top priority. The multiple threats that are transparent during this election are the following:

  • Disinformation through fake internet domains and email accounts

  • Disinformation online

  • False claims of voter information being hacked

  • Cyber-attacks on the voting system

The FBI and CISA go through these more thoroughly, to understand what voters can look out for to prepare for the online threats. Disinformation through fake websites and emails are common because they could replicate a real one. This can be identified with small misspellings on the site or email addresses, and usually if a website ends in “.gov” it is more secure rather than “.com”. Misinformation online are usually led by foreign intelligence services to lead voters to lose confidence in the legitimacy of the results and spreading information to manipulate the public. It is advised to only pay attention to known sources of information and if there are any problems with voting to go through credible sources before trying to look for answers online. False claims of hacking voter information also cause voters to refrain from wanting to vote, but this is information being spread by cyber criminals to discredit the electoral process and they did not hack or leak any voter information. If any of that information were to be leaked, it would not affect the votes at all. Cyber threats to the voting system could slow down the voting process but would not affect the integrity of the results. Some attacks that are a concern is the distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, which floods the server and can slow down and cause election sites to be inaccessible, although the voting data should not be affected according to federal officials. FBI and CISA state that cyber criminals are constantly trying to hack into the voter registration and reporting system, but there has not been any incidents that could change vote tallies or prevent the public from voting (Tucker, 2020).

Potential Impacts:

Having these foreign adversaries go online and manipulate the voter’s opinion of the election and the integrity of the process could cause less people to go out and vote. If these adversaries do somehow breach the security of the election and results, this could cause the results to be invalid and another process has to be performed. This is the first year using the majority mail-in ballot process, therefore, if anything were to go wrong we could expect not to use this method again. On the contrary, if things go well, it could be a primary form of voting in future elections. There is always a threat when sending information through a third party instead of in person.

Significance:

As an active voter in America I have seen information about the upcoming election, the possible threats, and how it is not secure. I did not allow that to affect my opinion because a lot of the information was misleading and did not come from a reliable source. It is important for individuals to be aware of this misleading information and possible threats so that it does not change their opinion and so that they know their information is secure and their votes count. A lot of Americans already have the idea that their votes do not count, therefore the false information discourages individuals to go and vote.

Sources:

Johnson, K. (2020, October 06). FBI, NSA confident in election: ‘Security of your vote has never been higher,’ says cyber security agency. Retrieved October 07, 2020, from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/10/06/cyber-security-agency-fbi-nsa-election-system-resilient/5898053002/

 

Tucker, E. (2020, October 07). Voter beware: FBI, CISA tells public how to avoid election misconduct. Retrieved October 07, 2020, from https://www.9news.com/article/news/nation-world/us-tells-public-how-to-avoid-election-misconduct/507-3a534436-763d-4d82-9a22-99c6dcef9d37