Experts raise security concerns about online voting

Experts are sounding alarms about potential security risks as several states consider allowing online voting amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Delaware, New Jersey and West Virginia are planning to allow overseas military personnel and voters with disabilities to return their ballots electronically for elections this year amid concerns about voting in person during a pandemic.

But federal officials and cybersecurity experts are strongly urging states to stay away from online voting, arguing that it could open up new avenues for interference less than four years after Russia meddled in the 2016 elections.

New guidelines: The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) joined a group of federal agencies in condemning the idea of online voting in guidelines first reported by The Guardian.

The guidelines, sent to states privately, described online voting as “high risk.”

“Electronic ballot return, the digital return of a voted ballot by the voter, creates significant security risks to voted ballot integrity, voter privacy, ballot secrecy, and system availability,” the agencies wrote in the guidelines. “Securing the return of voted ballots via the internet while maintaining voter privacy is difficult, if not impossible, at this time.”

The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine has also warned against electronic voting, and members of Congress have railed against the practice, citing security concerns.

Concerns: Russian state-backed actors targeted U.S. election infrastructure, including voter registration systems, in all 50 states in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, according to the Intelligence Community (IC) and former special counsel Robert Mueller.

In February, reports emerged that IC officials had told the House Intelligence Committee that Russia was again attempting to interfere in the 2020 presidential election.

But despite concerns around the ability of foreign actors to target online systems, some states are forging ahead with limited electronic voting, while highlighting the security controls in place.