Washington (CNN) The nation's election infrastructure is almost no more secure than it was a few years ago, a new report concludes, continuing to sound the alarm ahead of the upcoming midterms.

The report from the Brennan Center for Justice , a division of New York University School of Law that studies democracy and justice issues, looked at the age of voting machines and areas where there's still a lack of auditing trails for votes, arguing that Congress needs to give states money to update their voting systems and institute voting audits.

According to the Brennan Center's analysis, 41 states will be using voting systems that are at least a decade old, an improvement of only three states from 2016, and an estimated 43 states will be using machines that are no longer manufactured, the same number as in 2016.

The concern with the aged equipment is both that it is prone to malfunctions and breakdowns, and also that it can no longer support updated software, which could be a major cybersecurity vulnerability.

While most states use machines that have at least a paper trail, which experts consider a key backup security measure, Brennan finds that 13 states are still using some paperless voting machines and five states use them statewide -- an improvement of only one state since 2016. Virginia recently opted to replace all of its paperless voting systems.

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