A group of Princeton professors found that many voting machines across the country are less protected than iPhones and are becoming less secure each year.
The researchers examined a design called Direct Recording Electronic, or DREs, for more than a decade and found that several machines still in use in hundreds of precincts around the country, many in swing states, can be “jerry-rigged” to vote more than once, have poor encryption and poor safeguards against outside manipulation, according to Politico.
Despite the multiple vulnerabilities, the researchers said the threat starts with the machines that tally the votes and keep a record of them – or, in some cases, don't.
“We are in a collision course between the technology we use in election administration and the growing reality of politically motivated, state-level cyberattacks,” researcher Alex Halderman said in the report.
