Voting technology has become controversial–particularly after the 2020 election. There are 11 voting machine manufacturers in the U.S., according to the Election Assistance Commission. The companies offer a variety of products, including optical scanners, ballot marking devices and direct recording electronic systems.
Greg Miller is the co-founder and COO of the OSET Institute–a non-profit working to improve voter technology. According to Miller, the machines currently in use are vulnerable to hacking.
“If there is a USB port, where I can stick a data stick, or there is a radio card that allows me to do a WiFi connection or a plug it allows me to connect in an internet cable, if I can introduce anything into that machine that makes that machine inherently modifiable,” Miller said.
One safeguard against tampering involves physical protection, which includes security guards and trained poll workers.
Another security tactic involves paper ballots, which can be used as backups for voting technology.
“It’s really just impossible to have, you know, results being compromised or flipped or switched or changed by external devices, satellite servers overseas,” Miller said. “It just doesn’t work that way. Because the fact is, the results lie in the paper.”
