ELECTION SECURITY UPDATE Top 18 Most Vulnerable States

"It is now well-known that Russian hackers targeted voter registration databases in at least 21 states and attempted to access credentials of election technology vendors and election officials.1 If these attacks had succeeded, hackers could have deleted voter registration records, altered poll books, caused chaos on Election Day, and potentially swayed the results of the election. Moreover, the Intelligence Community has warned that foreign actors will likely continue to seek to interfere in our elections.2 In May, Secretary of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen said, “We see [Russia] continuing to conduct foreign influence campaigns.”3 In June, Robert Mueller echoed this finding, stating in a court filing that foreign “individuals and entities” are continuing to “engage in interference operations.” 4

In light of the ongoing threat of foreign interference in our nation’s elections, Congress appropriated $380 million in March 2018 to the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) for distribution to states to enhance election security. While this money is a useful down payment, we have found that it will cost an additional $1.4 billion over ten years for states to be able to take all the steps required to secure their election systems. In addition, at a hearing in June held by the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, state election officials told lawmakers that they needed additional federal funds to be able to fully secure their election infrastructure. Despite this, the appropriations bills currently being considered in the House of Representatives do not contain additional funding for election security.5

This report looks at the eighteen states with the most vulnerable election infrastructure and assesses: 1) whether they have requested the EAC grant money; 2) how the state plans on spending the grant money; and 3) whether the state’s response is sufficient given the threats and vulnerabilities it is facing. The states are organized in three tiers..":
Election security