The ranking Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security Committee is holding Secretary Jeh Johnson to his word on boosting cyber security for American voting machines.
In a letter sent to the Department of Homeland Security chief, Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) urged Johnson to designate election systems in the US as “critical infrastructure.” Such a label would afford them enhanced security oversight and protections from the federal government.
During a breakfast with reporters last week, Johnson stated that the department was “actively thinking about election security,” including granting voting machines the critical infrastructure tag.
Although DHS classifies 16 sectors of the economy—from energy production to transportation—as critical infrastructure, it currently does not label voting systems as such.
“Designating election systems as critical infrastructure could improve and expand our nation’s ability to prevent and to respond to potential cyberattacks originating both from inside or outside our borders,” Sen. Carper wrote in his letter on Monday.
He added that while the department has not identified a specific cyber threat to US voting machines, “concerns regarding the security of election-related information technology have persisted for some time.”
Carper noted that the CIA has kept watch on how foreign countries use voting machines, and detected attempts to hack the systems in order to change the election results. He also pointed to a recent decision by the Virginia State Board of Election to decommission thousands of voting machines there were “vulnerable to physical or wireless intrusion without detection.”
“Election security is critical, and a cyberattack by foreign actors on our election systems could compromise the integrity of our voting process.”
In his comments last week, Johnson warned of the difficulty in bringing election systems into the critical infrastructure fold given their localized nature. There are more than 9,000 local jurisdictions overseeing elections across the country—each with their own method of voting and tallying the ballots.
He did say, however, that the department plans to send local officials information recommending best cyber security practices. Carper urged Johnson to “move quickly” in dispatching that guidance.
