America’s top hackers have revealed that the voting machines due to be used in the 2024 presidential election have vulnerabilities that allow ballot counts to be manipulated.
However, despite the discovery, it may be too late to address the vulnerabilities before the critical November elections.
The vulnerabilities were revealed by hackers at the annual DEF CON conference in Las Vegas.
During the event, hackers sought to identify vulnerabilities in voting machines that will be used for the 2024 election.
The DEF CON “Voting Village” hacking event entailed hackers working with a variety of voting machines.
They were able to bypass firewalls and other security measures on devices meant for counting ballots and confirming voters’ identities, Politico reported.
Many individuals focused on election integrity are concerned that no system to swiftly update security measures exists, according to the outlet.
Due to the lack of measures available to fix the issues, the vulnerabilities are likely to still be there on Election Day.
“As far as time goes, it is hard to make any real, major, systemic changes, but especially 90 days out from the election,” Catherine Terranova, one of the Voting Village organizers, reportedly stated.
The organizers plan on publishing an imminent report on the hacker’s findings.
Harri Hursti, co-founder of the Voting Village, reportedly said the detected vulnerabilities took up “multiple pages” by Saturday afternoon.
However, the process to address any bugs in the system would likely not finish in time for the November general election, according to the outlet.
The event comes after President Donald Trump’s campaign was reportedly hacked last week.
The campaign referenced a Microsoft report that claimed Iranian hackers targeted a “high-ranking official on a presidential campaign.”
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung told Politico:
“On Friday, a new report from Microsoft found that Iranian hackers broke into the account of a ‘high ranking official’ on the U.S. presidential campaign in June 2024, which coincides with the close timing of President Trump’s selection of a vice presidential nominee.”
During the 2016 election, the FBI reported two states’ election databases were breached by foreign hackers.
The FBI did not clarify which states.
However, there were reports at the time of attacks on the voting systems in Illinois and Arizona.
A lawsuit was filed in 2017 against Dominion voting machine systems in Georgia.
It was filed by a group of Georgia voters and the Coalition for Good Governance – an election transparency nonprofit.
U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg agreed with the plaintiffs’ claims of vulnerabilities.
The judge ordered Georgia to update its system, the Courthouse News Service reported.
After the 2020 election, Republicans’ trust in U.S. elections plummeted due to concerns of voter fraud.
In 2022, Rasmussen Reports reported that “most Republicans don’t trust electronic voting machines.”
“39% of Likely U.S. voters believe voting machines make it easier to cheat in elections,” the poll also found.
The Democrats’ willingness to run Kamala Harris as the presidential nominee, despite her unpopularity as vice president, also raises concerns about potential voter fraud.
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