Election Process Protection (2017-2023): Election Computer Systems Present Great Vulnerability

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Jun 28, 2017, 07:15 ET

DUBLIN, June 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Research and Markets has announced the addition of Wintergreen Research, Inc's new report "Election Process Protection - Voting Center Vulnerability: Systems Strategies and Forecasts, Worldwide - 2017-2023" to their offering.

Political campaigning accounting for billions of dollars in spending, and domination of the news cycle (as James Michael Curley said so famously, Just spell my name right) get all the headlines. But what really matters in the end for the democratic process is the mechanics of running the election. We need a process that cannot be subverted. Countries, nations, states, regions, and counties need a process that counts the votes accurately and lets all qualified people vote.

Democracies need a vote counting process that makes all fraud detectable immediately as the votes are being counted, there needs to be protections built in so that all observers, including the independent media have instant confidence in the integrity of the election process.

Russian efforts to hack voting systems in the United States have been well publicized. What has been less apparent is the inherent vulnerabilities of many of the voting systems in the US and elsewhere. Prelude to Custom Election Process Research: James B. Comey, former director of the F.B.I. Has indicated that Russian operatives intervened in the 2016 presidential election and that it could happen again. Russian hackers are the best in the world, that is why they are so good at building computer security systems, because they know how to hacek.

Growing accountability of the election process needs to happen to protect a democracy. Election computer systems present great vulnerability and need to be designed in a manner that protects the integrity of the vote registration and the voting counting process. Administrators are realizing the benefits as related to the quality of high quality, low cost systems.

The security of the systems needs to be reflective of the inherent transparency that is achieved when watchers from opposing parties are able to watch the process in depth. No part of the process should be secret. When the author of this study, as a consultant, worked set up the State Board of Elections in Illinois, the most effective systems initiated were those that made the process transparent to representatives of both parties. The JFK Kennedy election had been stolen and JFK himself was appalled by the illegality of the election and put in process ways to correct the election process to prevent the stealing elections.

More needs to be done now. More can be done than has been done to prevent Russian efforts to hack voting systems in the United States and other places. This study represents a step, a guidepost if you will, to preventing hacking and to setting up systems that are secure. Data is collected from the headquarters of the National Security Agency and from state capitals that have discovered that the Russians were inside their voter-registration systems. An analysis is further provided to get people and election officials to look more deeply into the vulnerabilities of the vote tallying systems.

We now know Russia disrupted American democracy in 2016 and there is an effort to provide practical advice on how to prevent fraudulent behavior from influencing the outcome of an election. The recommendations help prevent this type of computer fraud from happening again. Russian hackers did not just breach Democratic email accounts; according to Mr. Comey, they orchestrated a massive effort targeting hundreds of -and possibly more than 1,000- American government and private organizations since 2015.

Companies Mentioned

Avante International Technology, Inc.
Clear Ballot Group, Inc.
Dominion Voting Systems Corp (This company purchased Sequoia Voting Systems)
Election Systems & Software, Inc (ES&S)
Everyone Counts, Inc.
Hart InterCivic, Inc.
MicroVote General Corp.
Open Source Digital Voting Foundation
Precise Voting, LLC
Premier Election Solutions, Inc.
Sequoia Voting Systems
Smartmatic USA Corporation
SOE Software, a Scytl Company
TruVote International
Unisyn Voting Solutions

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/wgnx6g/election_process

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SOURCE Research and Markets