AMU Emergency Management Public Safety

U.S. Governors Confident in Election Day Cyber Security

NGA says states are prepared for potential cyber attacks

While the list of Election Day concerns varies widely throughout the population, one remains a constant: cybersecurity.

Cybersecurity of the voting process and overall election system, to be more exact.

Recently, the National Governors Association (NGA), went out of its way to express confidence in various state’s ability to fend off cyber attacks. The NGA gathered experts recently to focus on the overall integrity of computer-based voting. The findings from this gathering pointed to a secure voting system.

According to the NGA, one large factor raising overall security is the decentralized nature of the electoral process in the U.S. Because voting is largely administered at the local level, a large-scale attack would be difficult to coordinate.

And, along with decentralization is the fact that different states store and process voter data in different ways. This is yet another hurdle for potential Election Day hackers to overcome.

Aware of potential vulnerabilities

Along with confidence, the NGA also expressed awareness. States have dealt with the prospect of voter-data cyber attacks for more than 10 years. So, at this point, state’s are well aware of the potential vulnerabilities that do still exist.

Awareness of current vulnerabilities led some states to [link url=”https://amuedge.com/government-officials-concerned-election-day-cyber-attack/” title=”request assistance”] from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and/or other government organizations.

Confronting the cyber challenge

The NGA published a short document titled [link url=”https://ci.nga.org/files/live/sites/ci/files/1617/docs/ElectionCybersecurityTwoPager.pdf” title=”Meet the Threat”] to offer tips on securing the voting process.

The document includes a summary of current threats, questions for Governors to consider, and specific recommendations for creating a secure environment.

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