TOPEKA, Kansas Kansas and federal election officials say they know the 2020 election could come under attack from foreign governments or rogue hackers. They also insist theyre braced to guard against efforts to tamper with voting.
In recent elections, Russian hackers tried to breach election systems in more than 20 states and successfully accessed voter registration data in Illinois. The top election official in Kansas assumes the states voting system could be next.
We got a U.S. Senate seat up for election, so that even makes it more of a target, Republican Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab said. Were not going to assume were safe, even though we are right now.
Federal law enforcement officials warn that foreign governments will try to undermine the results and influence public sentiment.
Russia, China, Iran and other foreign malicious actors all will seek to interfere in the voting process or influence voter perceptions, read a joint statement from the FBI and other federal security officials last month.
The risks
The dangers arent always as clear-cut as changing votes. A greater risk could lie in meddling with the system that decides whether somebody even gets a ballot.
The humble poll book is an Election Day staple. It lists voters and is used to count who has cast ballots. It now often exists in digital form, rather than on paper.
Tinker with the poll books and youve disrupted an election.
Hacking poll books on Election Day would create chaos by slowing down voting dramatically as would-be voters fill out provisional ballots.
It would take forever. The lines would wrap around the block, said Dan Wallach, who studies election security at Rice University. People would just say I cant wait this long to vote and then not vote.
Messing with the poll books doesnt directly change votes, but strategically causing chaos could shift an election.
If I can cause long lines in areas that have one partisan direction and everything goes smoothly in areas with a different partisan direction, Wallach said, then I can affect the outcome.
