Our investigation found that in 2018, hundreds of counties in 14 states used paperless voting machines – and almost half of the counties that responded to our survey said they don’t plan on changing that ahead of 2020. | Joe Raedle/Getty Images cybersecurity America faces a voting security crisis in 2020. Here’s why – and what officials can do about it. A Q&A with cybersecurity pros, including an expert whose team once hacked into an internet voting system in 48 hours.

Paperless voting machines are just waiting to be hacked in 2020. And “upgrading” to paper-based voting machines may sound like an oxymoron, but it’s something cybersecurity experts are urging election officials across the country to do. A POLITICO survey found that in 2018, hundreds of counties in 14 states used paperless voting machines — and almost half of the counties that responded to the survey said they don’t plan on changing that ahead of 2020. Security experts said paperless voting machines are vulnerable to hacking because they leave no paper trail and there’s no way to reliably audit the results when an error occurs.

Thousands of Redditors joined us as cybersecurity reporter Eric Geller and voting security expert and University of Michigan professor J. Alex Halderman took on Reddit's most pressing questions about the weaknesses in America’s election systems . We chatted about voting methods in various countries from the U.S. to India, how much the transition to paper ballots would cost, and even " Star Wars ."


Here are a few of the best Q&As from our robust cybersecurity discussion, lightly edited for clarity and length.



Question

What are the most convincing arguments against internet voting?

Answer

Internet voting systems tend to be fragile. A few years ago, Washington, D.C., built an online voting system and invited anyone to try to hack in during a mock election. It took me and my students only about 48 hours to gain full control and change all the votes, and the election officials didn't notice anything was wrong until somebody noticed a musical "calling card" we left for them to find. — Halderman



Question

Why are so many politicians against paper ballots?

Answer

Politicians want to give voters what they want, and voters enjoy electronic voting machines because they're familiar and convenient (they're basically giant iPads). Some politicians also harbor mistaken beliefs about the security and reliability of paper ballots compared to electronic devices. In some cases, politicians aren't so much against paper ballots as they are against replacing what they have with something else, for cost and logistical reasons. — Geller



Question

How much money would it cost to have every poll location "upgraded" to paper ballots?

Answer

Surprisingly little! I testified to Congress about this earlier this year and concluded that it would cost about $370 million to implement paper ballots in every U.S. jurisdiction that lacks them today. Once you have paper ballots, risk-limiting audits are cheap. Auditing every federal race would cost less than $25 million a year. $370 million might seem like a lot of money, but this is by far the cheapest major cybersecurity challenge to solve. And we can do it without any technical breakthroughs. — Halderman





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Question

What is the point of using electronic voting in first place? Shouldn't the voting system use something easily understandable like paper and pencils?

Answer

Electronic voting is much more convenient, especially in today's iPhone world. In addition, many voters with disabilities cannot vote with paper and pencils. This is one of the biggest reasons electronic voting machines — sometimes paperless ones — persist in many places. They offer voters with disabilities a way to vote independently and privately, as is their constitutional right. — Geller



Question

What are the best policy measures needed to protect elections?

Answer

The U.S. desperately needs stronger national leadership on election security. The points I'd most like to see are:

A requirement that every federal election be conducted with paper ballots.

A requirement that the results of every federal election be subjected to a risk-limiting audit, to confirm that the computer totals match the paper ballots.

Federal cybersecurity standards for election administration, including requirements to follow security best practices for securing voter registration systems, election management systems and outcome reporting systems.

None of these measures is particularly expensive or difficult, and many states are already implementing at least some of them. But until we get a minimum election security standard — and further federal resources to help states implement them — it will be many years until all states have these necessary defenses in place. — Halderman

Question

Do voting machines have to comply with any cybersecurity mandates (e.g., NIST)? Who approves their cybersecurity plans?

Answer

The National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Election Assistance Commission collaborate on a set of voluntary standards that states can choose to adopt and make mandatory. But there are no federal regulations on voting technology vendors. Only state regulations. Similarly, only state governments have the authority to require vendors to show them their cybersecurity plans. The federal government does not inspect them in that way. — Geller



Question

What’s the best way to overcome the “hanging chad” issue with paper ballots that we saw during the presidential election in 2000?

Answer

Manufacturers of paper ballots have significantly improved the design of these ballots since 2000. No voting method is perfect, but research from 2012 suggests the error rate is between 1 percent and 2 percent. The vast majority of the voting problems I heard about on Election Day 2018 were related to electronic voting machines rather than paper ballots or their scanners. We've come a long way since 2000. — Geller



Question

Wouldn't blockchain technology eradicate the ability for elections to be tampered with?

Answer

Blockchain's great for maintaining a distributed ledger, and that might be useful for some election applications (like voter registration), but it's far from the hardest security challenge facing elections. Say you wanted to build a blockchain-based online voting system. You'd need to be really sure the blockchain system itself is secure, but you'd also need to figure out how to authenticate voters securely and how to guard against attacks that compromise voters' client devices and modify votes before they're posted on the blockchain. These are really hard problems, as evidenced by frequent attacks that steal cryptocurrency by stealing passwords, installing malware on clients, or compromising exchanges. — Halderman



Question

I live in an area where we will be using paperless voting (Tennessee). Should I even bother voting?

Answer

YES! Please vote! We're talking about serious risks, but that's all they are: things that could potentially go wrong. If you don't participate, you're guaranteeing that your vote won't count, and that's a win for attackers who want to undermine American democracy. — Halderman



Question

Whatever happened to the good days, when you just put a nice, smooth rock into a hat to vote?

Answer

We'd need a lot more rocks and much bigger hats. — Geller