BOSTON — Early voting, voting by mail — COVID-era concepts that are now fixtures of the U.S. electoral system. But some Americans fear that more ways to vote — could mean more avenues for fraud.
Thursday, the government agency charged with election security sought to ease those concerns.
Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, said the election infrastructure has never been more secure.
“No matter who you vote for, you can have confidence that your vote will be counted as cast,” she said during a video press conference.
Easterly pointed to three things that should assure Americans their votes are safe. First, voting machines used in the U.S. are not connected to the Internet — and thus are not vulnerable to cyberattack. Nearly all voters (97%+) will cast ballots in jurisdictions with backup paper ballots. And, she said, safeguards are in place both for physical and cybersecurity.
But, Easterly said, the threats are real and they are varied.
“There are very real threats from our foreign adversaries — Russia, Iran, and China — who remain intent on two key goals,” she saiid. “Undermining American confidence in our elections and in our democratic institutions writ large and stoking partisan discord, pitting Americans against each other. We cannot allow them to do that.”
Easterly did not go into detail on how, exactly, the government is thwarting attacks on the electoral system. But she said one of its inherent strengths is that, state to state, elections are conducted differently in terms of machines and methods.
“That decentralized, diverse nature of our election infrastructure really builds enormous resilience,” said Easterly. “Because it means a malicious actor cannot impact our elections at any meaningful or material scale.”
In other words, messing with one state’s elections will not induce a domino effect.
All that said, Easterly does not expect completely smooth sailing come election day.
“There will be hiccups,” she said. “In any sort of event that includes hundreds of thousands of election workers, tens of thousands of polling places and some 150 million Americans voting, there will be things that go wrong — there always are”
It could be a storm that takes out power, she said. Or a late-opening precinct. Or even a ransomware attack on an election office.
“But the good news is none of these incidents will prevent Americans from casting their ballots or those ballots being counted as cast,” said Easterly.
Easterly expressed concern for the safety of poll workers, some of whom in the last election faced harassment, threats and even worse — and all stemming from the unfounded claim that Democrats stole the 2020 election.
“They’re our friends, they’re our neighbors, they are folks we see in our community all the time,” she said. “And they’re not doing this for pay or glory. They’re doing it because they believe in democracy. And they believe in standing on the front lines of defending the heart of democracy.”
Dozens of poll workers manned tables at Florian Hall in Dorchester Thursday, one of three early voting sites open in the city of Boston. In brisk spurts, early voters rolled in — the rushes coinciding with lunch and heading-home times.
“I think our poll workers a hundred percent should be kept safe and should feel good and excited about spending their time,” said Austyn Mayfield. “When I dropped off my ballot today everyone seemed in really good spirits, everyone was extremely helpful. I know we’re all voting different ways, but in that space we were all there and it felt good.”
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