The Russian government’s alleged involvement in disrupting or influencing the 2016 elections in the United States is one factor that prompted the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to offer cybersecurity services to state, county and local election agencies. Just a month out from the elections, however, while thirty-three states have taken up DHS on its offer, only eleven county and local election agencies have done so.
This lack of response prompted DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson to issue a call Monday for more agencies, including the seventeen remaining states, to take advantage of the screening. While not all states, counties and local elections involve electronic voting, most, if not all, have some vulnerability, as Johnson pointed out:
Johnson warned that time is very short to secure these election systems given the lag in between authorization for the screening and the testing for and fixing of any shortcomings:
A number of states returned to paper ballots to try to avoid some of the pitfalls of electronic voting.
