News & Insights
We’re Making History in Real Time.
Our timely insights share informed perspectives on the rapidly evolving story of Election Technology, as it unfolds.
Another Look at the CAP Briefing on Solving Election Security
We want to give credit to the great points the Center for American Progress recently made in their Briefing about election integrity. While we have some strategic differences, we generally endorse CAP’s tactical steps for improving election integrity in the near term. The CAP Briefing was well researched and brought together many points that are widely agreed upon by the election integrity community including the OSET Institute. Given Greg’s desire to limit the length of his response recently, and focus on the structural issue we’re so concerned about, we decided I would post a list here of the points we agree with and those we differ on...
Another Proposed Solution Set to Protect U.S. Elections
Danielle Root and Liz Kennedy at the Center for American Progress (“CAP”) published an important Briefing today highlighting nine solutions to secure America’s elections. The Briefing is well researched and offers a keen assessment of our current public elections’ average level of integrity. I want to say right up front, this is good and important work. What we offer as a review and comment here is intended to catalyze an intellectually honest conversation, and not to serve as some critique of their good work.
Is Foreign State Hacking of an Election An Act of War?
A couple of days ago Benjamin Dynkin, Barry Dynkin & Daniel Garrie, published an intriguing article in the New York Law Journal, “Hacking Elections: An Act of War?” (Subscription required.) The article is well heeled; Benjamin Dynkin is a law clerk at Grauman Law Group. Barry Dynkin is of counsel at the firm, where he heads the cyber security practice. Daniel Garrie is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Law and Cyber Warfare and a partner at Zeichner Ellman & Krause. And its worth summarizing here food for thought (inasmuch as possibly some intellectual navel-gazing ;-)
National Academies Wades Into The Future of Voting Technology Question
The esteemed National Academies of Sciences, Engineering & Medicine recently announced the formation of the “Committee on the Future of Voting: Accessible, Reliable, Verifiable Technology.” Their Study will take up topics in four areas all of which we have developed domain expertise in for 10-years. We're excited to support their efforts...
A Call for the President to Act on Electoral Integrity Preparedness
Its not common for us to wade into policy issues of our U.S. President's Administration, but given how much we've witnessed regarding foreign meddling in the 2016 election cycle, we believe its well within our mission scope to comment today on this nation's preparedness regarding our election infrastructure in upcoming elections.....
With the Election Past; The Clock is Running
With the election behind us, regardless of how you view the results, one irrefutable fact remains... the 2016 general election is absolutely the last election the existing voting infrastructure of this nation can possibly support. Another fact is that the machinery of America's elections is on its last legs (literally)...
Response Letter to POLITICO Article on Critical Election Infrastructure
Below is a letter sent to Tim Starks and Cory Bennett of POLITICO, who cover cyber-security issues. There seems to be some fundamental misunderstandings of the challenges local election officials (LEOs) face, the process by which the equipment is qualified for deployment (albeit decrepit archaic technology by today's standards), what the vulnerabilities are (and are not), and why a designation of "critical infrastructure" is an important consideration. We attempt to address some of those points in this response to Tim's otherwise really good coverage....
Finally, Gov Starts Talking About Critical Democracy Infrastructure
This week the Government started earnest discussions about election infrastructure as possibly rising to the level of critical infrastructure. Like us, we think they're sensing that this coming general election is ripe for disruption, both from foreign operator but potentially even domestic actors. We think this is a great idea, but not without the required action to make it really happen. Designations are start, but there is a bunch of work to be done...