As the security of U.S. elections continues to be a topic of significant public concern, much of the focus has turned to the technology behind voting systems. With the increasing reliance on digital infrastructure, the potential for cyber threats to disrupt the electoral process has raised alarms. To address these concerns, many election technology companies, including Clear Ballot, have implemented comprehensive security measures to ensure the integrity and transparency of the voting process.
Clear Ballot’s ClearCast scanners, which are widely deployed in U.S. elections, exemplify one such security solution. These machines operate without internet connectivity—no Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or remote access—which drastically reduces the attack surface and mitigates the risk of remote cyberattacks. However, despite these advancements in digital security, the physical security of voting systems remains a crucial area of focus, as physical access to the machines continues to represent one of the most significant risks.
Secure Voting Systems: Risk Mitigation and Physical Controls
Companies like Clear Ballot Group have worked diligently to mitigate risk through the use of secure, air-gapped voting machines. Clear Ballot’s ClearCast scanners, which are widely used across the U.S., operate with no internet connectivity—there is no Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or remote access, reducing the attack surface significantly. This air-gapped design minimizes exposure to remote cyberattacks, one of the primary vectors for compromise in digital infrastructure. From a cybersecurity perspective, air-gapping offers a high level of security, though it is not without risks, as physical access remains the most likely threat.
One of the key security protocols used to secure these machines is the strict access control during setup. Voting machines are shipped in secure containers and require a bipartisan team to break seals and log in on Election Day. This is an example of implementing physical security controls to prevent tampering or unauthorized access—a form of “least privilege” in physical security, where only authorized personnel can interact with sensitive systems.
Vendor Landscape: Potential Supply Chain Risks
Dominion Voting Systems, alongside other major vendors like Election Systems & Software (ES&S) and Hart InterCivic, is a primary provider of voting infrastructure in the U.S. These companies have undergone intense scrutiny, especially following disinformation campaigns and the subsequent $787 million settlement related to the spread of election fraud claims. From a cybersecurity risk management perspective, these companies face supply chain risks, given the critical role of third-party vendors in providing election infrastructure. When evaluating vendors, cybersecurity professionals must consider risks associated with the vendor’s internal security posture, system design, and their adherence to rigorous security standards (e.g., ISO/IEC 27001:2013, NIST 800-53).
The use of paper ballots in approximately 97% of U.S. elections is a key mitigation against digital manipulation. This dual approach—where both digital and paper records are maintained—helps to reduce risks related to data integrity and authenticity. However, while the primary risk associated with voting machines (i.e., tampering with vote counts) has not materialized at scale, there are still significant concerns around potential vulnerabilities in the digital side of election infrastructure, including data transmission and storage.
Layered Defense: Digital and Physical Security Integration
Modern voting systems are complex, multi-layered systems involving both digital and physical components. Voting machines themselves are part of a broader system of data storage and transmission, with results often transferred via USB and manually entered into secure systems for tallying. This process incorporates key elements of defense in depth, in essence the utilization of multiple layers of protection. The physical machines (protected by air-gapping) serve as one layer, while secure data transmission via encrypted USB sticks or hard drives forms another.
Forensic auditors and election officials have the ability to cross-reference digital vote counts with paper ballots if discrepancies arise, offering an added layer of risk mitigation through verification processes. This alignment between physical and digital records serves to reduce the risk of vote tampering or inaccuracies in the final tally.
On Addressing Risk in Real-Time Operations
Clear Ballot’s systems are specifically designed with redundancy in mind, incorporating three separate drives, including USB drives, to log data at every step of the process. Each machine logs every vote and maintenance action, creating a comprehensive record of all operations—similar to a black box in an aircraft. From a cybersecurity standpoint, this is an excellent application of traceability and accountability principles, where every action is logged and can be audited.
This traceability is further strengthened by ClearCast’s paper trail, which creates an auditable record that can be cross-referenced against digital records. This design is similar to the redundancy practices found in cybersecurity, where multiple backups are kept in different forms (e.g., cloud backups, offline backups) to ensure that, in case of an incident, critical data can be recovered and the integrity of the system can be verified. For election infrastructure, this redundancy is vital for mitigating operational risks, such as human error or physical damage to machines.
Understanding the Context of Cybersecurity Risks
While voting infrastructure itself is designed to be secure, the exposure of voter data remains a significant concern. For example, in 2016, Russian hackers breached the Illinois State Board of Elections and accessed private information for over 500,000 voters. While this constitutes a serious data breach, it is important to note that this incident involved personal voter information, not manipulation of votes themselves.
In this case, the exposure of sensitive voter data represents a clear risk to the confidentiality of personal information, but does not equate to compromising the integrity of vote counts. Cybersecurity professionals must assess such incidents through the lens of data protection and privacy risk management, while distinguishing between breaches that expose personal information and breaches that compromise the operational integrity of the voting process.
Misinformation and Disinformation
From a strategic perspective, misinformation campaigns pose the most significant cybersecurity risk to the democratic process. Since 2016, widespread disinformation campaigns have targeted public confidence in the election process, with the aim of undermining trust in electoral integrity. These campaigns, often fueled by malicious actors and state-sponsored threat groups, use psychological manipulation to sow division and disrupt the democratic process.
The spread of false claims about “rigged” elections and “hacked” voting systems, particularly through social media platforms, has contributed to a deterioration of trust in election outcomes. This, in turn, damages democratic norms and undermines the legitimacy of electoral results. It’s imperative to understand that while these campaigns do not directly impact vote counts, they do in fact represent a broader threat to the stability of democratic institutions.
How Can Netizen Help?
Netizen ensures that security gets built-in and not bolted-on. Providing advanced solutions to protect critical IT infrastructure such as the popular “CISO-as-a-Service” wherein companies can leverage the expertise of executive-level cybersecurity professionals without having to bear the cost of employing them full time.
We also offer compliance support, vulnerability assessments, penetration testing, and more security-related services for businesses of any size and type.
Additionally, Netizen offers an automated and affordable assessment tool that continuously scans systems, websites, applications, and networks to uncover issues. Vulnerability data is then securely analyzed and presented through an easy-to-interpret dashboard to yield actionable risk and compliance information for audiences ranging from IT professionals to executive managers.
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