A Cyber-Security Option for the 2022 Elections

Canada Free Press ^ | October 20, 2021 | Jeff Lukens

[jarheadtom]

If voting machines are connected to the internet, they can be hacked. While there is evidence that there were cyber-attacks in all 50 states, the sad truth almost a year after the 2020 election debacle is that our voting machines are still connected to the internet. We are still vulnerable to cyber attacks in our future elections. Now is the time to take steps to prevent future cyber election fraud. Minimizing or eliminating their internet connectivity for the 2022 elections is still possible with some prudent steps that we can take now.

[1Old Pro]

Now is the time to take steps to prevent future cyber election fraud. Minimizing or eliminating their internet connectivity for the 2022 elections is still possible with some prudent steps that we can take now.

Now is the time? It's PAST time.

[patriotspride]

Let’s see how many state legislatures enact a law banning this.

That will reveal a lot about 2022 and 2024 .

It’s all on them to show they care about integrity or truly reveal they want to continue the ability of non secure results

[Fester Chugabrew]

Official paper ballots with serial numbers and a means for each citizen to see if his vote was not just counted, but properly so. Anything less is a losing game.

[red-dawg]

I have been an Election Judge for 6 years in a county with more than a million people.
The voting machines in use here are in NO WAY connected to the internet.

[sauropod]

Bkmk

[taxcontrol]

The author of this article does not present any cyber security credentials and is basically spouting his opinion. While he is certainly entitled to his opinion, talking about a highly technical matter (IT controls within cyber security) and not having a solid background in that space often leads to articles that are missing information or perspective.

In this case, the push of the article is to prohibit connection to the internet. A useful measure, but only one of many that need to be taken. Some of the required measures have little to do with technology. For example, control over ballots and controls over the voter rolls.

The point of my diatribe is that there are a lot of things that should be done to strengthen the integrity of our elections. There should be a concerted effort to protect the ENTIRE election process. For example, if the voter rolls and ballots are not properly secured, the vote counting machines can and will count illegal ballots.

[Gideon7]

There are plenty of ways to secure the ballot. For example, you can print a scannable unique private QR code on each ballot (think Ticketmaster). Every voter has a social security number and a date of birth, right? So compute HMAC(SSN|DOB|Secret1)=QR (where ‘|’ is the digit concatenation operator) using a one-way Hash-based Message Authentication Code [HMAC]. Secret1 is randomly generated by the election bureau for each ballot. Print it as a scannable QR code on the ballot.

This gives each ballot a unique QR such that no two ballots are the same, preventing duplication. The voter can later confirm that his/her ballet was indeed counted by entering in their SSN and DOB at the election bureau’s website to check.

The other problem is vote tampering. Using the same basic system the voter can verify on the election bureau’s website to confirm who they voted for. When the ballot is received, the voting bureau scans the QR and computes HMAC(QR|MyVote|Secret2), where Secret2 is known only to the election bureau. Do this for each political office on the ballot. The voter can then go to the website and enter their personal info to confirm that the vote was counted correctly.

You can strengthen the privacy of the system by using something like two-factor authentication where a second entity (not the election bureau) counter-signs each QR code with Secret3.

This system guarantees privacy, prevents ballot duplication, and detects vote tampering.

Here is another method, one that is not nearly as robust but is easy to understand:

Have the election bureau send out separate mailing with a 4-digit PIN. Send it a few days before mailing the actual ballots. Each ballot has a QR code that matches the PIN (encrypted).

That way a thief would have to steal both the PIN and the ballot to grab someone else’s vote.

Nothing is foolproof, but either of these methods are a damn sight better than the system the Democrats want to use (nothing at all).

[taxcontrol]

I would also recommend that only US printers be allowed to print US ballots using digital printers (allows tracking back to the machine that printed the ballot).

Us the counterfeit laws to prevent the importation of ballots or the unauthorized possession of more than one ballot.

And as long as we are using technology, we could apply a distributed ledger to the voting rolls. Each election cycle, start a new voter roll, SOS or most senior election official starts as the first entry, then adds in the county election officials and then each county gets to add in voters that have been verified, etc.