Sept. 6, 2018
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
New Report Identifies Steps to Secure Americans’ Votes; All U.S. Elections Should Use Paper Ballots by 2020 Presidential Election; Internet Voting Should Not Be Used at This Time
WASHINGTON -- To protect the integrity and security of U.S. elections, all local, state, and federal elections should be conducted using human-readable paper ballots by the 2020 presidential election, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. In addition, every effort should be made to use paper ballots in the 2018 federal election. Ballots that have been marked by voters should not be returned over the Internet or any network connected to it, because no current technology can guarantee their secrecy, security, and verifiability, the report says.
“The 2016 presidential election was a watershed moment in the history of elections – one that exposed new challenges and vulnerabilities that require the immediate attention of state and local governments, the federal government, researchers, and the American public,” said Michael McRobbie, president of Indiana University and co-chair of the committee that conducted the two-year study and wrote the report.
The committee included computer science and cybersecurity experts, legal and election scholars, social scientists, and election officials.
Assessments by the U.S. intelligence community found that during the 2016 presidential election, America’s election infrastructure was targeted by actors sponsored by the Russian government who obtained and maintained access to elements of multiple U.S. state or local election systems. The intrusions made clear the vulnerability of election infrastructure to cyberattack, the new report says -- a vulnerability exacerbated by aging equipment and a lack of sustained funding. Foreign state-sponsored attacks present a challenge for even the most well-resourced jurisdictions; small, under-resourced jurisdictions are at serious risk.
State and local governments must work together with the federal government to secure and improve election systems, the report says. The cybersecurity of electronic systems used in elections, such as voter registration databases and vote tabulation systems, should be continuously monitored and improved. And audits of paper ballots should be used to verify that votes have been tabulated correctly and to detect when electronic systems have been compromised.
“This is a critical time for our country,” said committee co-chair Lee Bollinger, president of Columbia University. “As a nation, we need to take collective action to strengthen our voting systems and safeguard our democracy. In addition, the nation’s leaders need to speak candidly and apolitically about threats to election systems. The American people must have confidence that their leaders place the larger interests of democracy above all else.”
The report recommends steps that the federal government, state and local governments, and election administrators should take to improve the security of election infrastructure and safeguard its integrity and credibility, including:
The study was sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine are private, nonprofit institutions that provide independent, objective analysis and advice to the nation to solve complex problems and inform public policy decisions related to science, technology, and medicine. The National Academies operate under an 1863 congressional charter to the National Academy of Sciences, signed by President Lincoln. For more information, visit http://nationalacademies.org.Contacts:
Sara Frueh, Media Relations Officer
Andrew Robinson, Media Relations Assistant
Office of News and Public Information
202-334-2138; e-mail news@nas.edu
Additional Resources:
Project Website
Infographic of Report Findings
Video Photostory
Social Media:
Follow us on Twitter: @theNASEM
Follow us on Instagram: @theNASEM
Follow us on Facebook: @NationalAcademies
Copies of Securing the Vote: Protecting American Democracy are available at www.nap.edu or by calling 202-334-3313 or 1-800-624-6242. Reporters may obtain a copy from the Office of News and Public Information (contacts listed above).
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES OF SCIENCES, ENGINEERING, AND MEDICINE
Policy and Global Affairs Division
Committee on Science, Technology, and Law
Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences
Computer Science and Telecommunications Board
Committee on the Future of Voting: Accessible, Reliable, Verifiable Technology
Lee C. Bollinger (co-chair)
President
Columbia University
New York City
Michael A. McRobbie (co-chair)
President
Indiana University
Bloomington
Andrew W. Appel
Eugene Higgins Professor of Computer Science
Princeton University
Princeton, N.J.
Josh Benaloh
Senior Cryptographer
Microsoft Research
Redmond, Wash.
Karen S. Cook1
Ray Lyman Wilbur Professor of Sociology, and
Vice Provost for Faculty Development and Diversity, and
Director
Institute for Research in the Social Sciences
Stanford University
Stanford, Calif.
Dana DeBeauvoir
Travis County Clerk
County of Travis
Austin, Texas
Moon Duchin
Associate Professor
Department of Mathematics and
Founding Director
Program in Science, Technology, and Society
Tufts University
Medford, Mass.
Juan E. Gilbert
Andrew Banks Family Preeminence Endowed Professor and Chair
Department of Computer and Information Science and Engineering
University of Florida
Gainesville
Susan L. Graham2
Pehong Chen Distinguished Professor Emerita
Computer Science Division
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
University of California
Berkeley
Neal Kelley
Registrar of Voters
County of Orange
Santa Ana, Calif.
Kevin J. Kennedy
Director and General Counsel (retired)
Wisconsin Government Accountability Board
Madison
Nathaniel Persily
James B. McClatchy Professor of Law
Stanford Law School
Stanford, Calif.
Ronald L. Rivest1,2
Institute Professor
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge
Charles Stewart III
Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Political Science
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge
STAFF
Anne-Marie C. Mazza
Staff Officer
1Member, National Academy of Sciences
2Member, National Academy of Engineering