To: President Donald Trump, The United States House of Representatives, and The United States Senate
Tell Obama: Protect electronic voting from hackers
Protect America's electronic voting system from malicious hackers. Designate voting systems as "critical infrastructure" and enact key procedures now to protect our votes on November 8.
Why is this important?
The FBI recently announced that foreign hackers infiltrated election databases in Arizona and Illinois, warning election officials in all 50 states to be vigilant against cyber attacks. This is the latest report in a wave of election-related security breaches this year. Earlier this summer, hackers released thousands of emails from major Democratic Party organizations and officials.
But the White House could choose to act right now to improve the integrity of our voting systems.
In response to recent attacks, the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson is now considering classifying election systems as "critical infrastructure," which would grant special security assistance and bring in more federal resources.
This is an important step to ensure we hold our voting systems up to the security standards of banks or the private grid. But this isn't enough.
The U.S. government must invest in our voting infrastructure and take further action now to protect against attacks, such as mandating pre-election testing for voting machines and making emergency paper ballots available as backups to electronic voting machines, among other measures.