美国国家公共电台 NPR If Voting Machines Were Hacked, Would Anyone Know?

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Let's spend a moment on an overshadowed question about Russia and the U.S. election. For President Trump 1, the investigation 2 of Russian interference in last year's election is a quote, "witch hunt." For some lawmakers, though, the real question is whether Russian interference can be prevented in the future. Officials say they see no evidence that votes have been tampered 3 with, but they can't be sure. Here's NPR's Pam Fessler.

PAM FESSLER, BYLINE 4: Election officials assured voters repeatedly last year that there was no way foreign hackers 6 could manipulate votes. Louisiana Secretary of State Tom Schedler was typical.

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TOM SCHEDLER: There is no state, in general - no state - voting in cyberspace 7 on the Internet. So how do you hack 5 something in cyberspace when it's not in cyberspace?

JEREMY EPSTEIN: Well, it's inaccurate 8 on two levels.

FESSLER: Election cybersecurity expert Jeremy Epstein says many states do allow some online voting, usually for members of the military. But more importantly, even if most voting machines aren't connected to the Internet...

EPSTEIN: They are connected to something that's connected to something that's connected to the Internet.

FESSLER: And last week's release of a U.S. intelligence report on Russian hacking 9 only reinforced his concerns. Russia apparently 10 broke into an election software vendor's computer system and used that information to send 122 election officials fake emails infected with malicious 11 software. It's unclear if anyone took the bait, but University of Michigan computer scientist Alex Halderman says it's just the kind of phishing attacks someone would use if they wanted to manipulate votes.

ALEX HALDERMAN: That's because before every election, the voting machines have to be programmed with the design of the ballot 12, right? What are the races? Who are the candidates?

FESSLER: And that's done on a computer in a central election office or by a contractor 13. The ballot program is then installed on individual voting machines using removable memory cards.

HALDERMAN: So as a remote attacker, I can target an election management system, one of these ballot programming computers. If I can infect it with malicious software, I can have that malicious software spread to the individual machines on the memory cards and then change votes on Election Day.

FESSLER: There's absolutely no evidence that happened last year, but Halderman notes that some or all electronic voting machines in 14 states have no paper ballot backups that can be checked to make sure there was no tampering 14. State and local election officials insist such an attack would be extremely difficult, if not impossible because of tight security measures such as restrictions 15 on who has access to voting machines. Still, Connecticut election director Peggy Reeves told a panel on voting technology earlier this week that many local election officials are ill-equipped to handle cybersecurity threats.

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PEGGY REEVES: Many of our towns actually have no local IT support. Seriously, they don't have an IT director in their town. They might have a consultant 16 that they call on if they have an issue. So they look to us, but we're a pretty small division.

FESSLER: She says the best protection against hackers is probably the fact that the nation's voting system is so decentralized. Larry Norden, an election technology expert with the Brennan Center, agrees, but he's worried that last year's intruders were laying the groundwork for more serious attacks in the future.

LARRY NORDEN: This is a real threat. It's not going away, and if anything, foreign adversaries 17 - even people at home might be emboldened 18 to do this more going forward. And to me, it is a real call that we have to do more as soon as possible, to secure these systems.

FESSLER: He would like all voting machines to have paper records and for all states to conduct routine audits 19 to make sure that the electronic results match the paper ones. Pam Fessler, NPR News.