Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

The IT pros are concerned about election security this fall

Election security

More than half the IT professionals surveyed said they had become less confident in election security since the pandemic.

eclipse_images/Getty Images

The nation's professional computer geeks are very worried about the security of the election.

A survey of more than 3,000 IT professionals by their trade association, released Tuesday, found a broad array of anxiety about what state and local officials have done to prepare for the presidential vote (and left undone) — especially since the coronavirus pandemic has upended their priorities in the last six months.


Among the top-line findings:

  • 63 percent say they are confident in the resilience of the voting equipment, electronic poll books and other electoral infrastructure the country will rely on in seven weeks.
  • 56 percent say they have become less confident in election security since the onset of the pandemic, which has shifted much of the attention about election preparation to the challenges of a surge in voting by mail.
  • 57 percent believe the money that's been spent since 2016, when evidence of Russian interference propelled interest in election security, has not been sufficient to prevent hacking of the coming election.

The survey found these professionals most concerned about misinformation and disinformation campaigns, tampering with the tabulation of voting results and the hacking into or tampering with voter registration servers or voting machines.

The survey was conducted by ISACA, formerly known as the Information Systems Audit and Control Association, which in July questioned more than 3,000 IT governance, risk, security and audit professionals nationwide.

Greg Touhill, an ISACA board member, acknowledged that most election officials have "sound election security procedures in place" in the wake of the mostly failed attempts by Russian agents to hack into election systems four years ago.

"This means that governments, from the county level on up, need to clearly and robustly communicate about what they are doing to secure their election infrastructure," he said.

In the past two years, Congress has provided $805 million in grants to the states to bolster their election security funding and $400 million to help with election expenses related to Covid-19. The Democratic-majority House approved another $3.6 billion for election aid in May, but negotiations with the Trump administration and the Republican Senate over the underlying economic recovery package have stalled ever since.

The survey of IT professionals found that a majority favor public education about misinformation as a way to boost public confidence in the election.

Other ways to improve public confidence identified by survey participants include using voting machines that provide a paper trail that can be audited and increasing training for election and election security officials.

Read More

Connecticut: Democracy, Innovation, and Economic Resilience

The 50: Connecticut

Credit: Hugo Balta

Connecticut: Democracy, Innovation, and Economic Resilience

The 50 is a four-year multimedia project in which the Fulcrum visits different communities across all 50 states to learn what motivated them to vote in the 2024 presidential election and see how the Donald Trump administration is meeting those concerns and hopes.

Hartford, Connecticut, stands as a living testament to American democracy, ingenuity, and resilience. As the state’s capital, it’s home to cultural landmarks like the Mark Twain House & Museum, where Twain penned The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, embodying the spirit of self-governance and creative daring that defines the region.

Keep ReadingShow less
Hand blocking someone speaking

The Third Way has recently released a memo stating that the “stampede away from the Democratic Party” is partly a result of the language and rhetoric it uses.

Westend61/Getty Images

To Protect Democracy, Democrats Should Pay Attention to the Third Way’s List of ‘Offensive’ Words

More than fifty years ago, comedian George Carlin delivered a monologue entitled Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.” It was a tribute to the legendary Lenny Bruce, whose “nine dirty words” performance led to his arrest and his banning from many places.

His seven words were “p—, f—, c—, c———, m———–, and t—.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Fox News’ Selective Silence: How Trump’s Worst Moments Vanish From Coverage
Why Fox News’ settlement with Dominion Voting Systems is good news for all media outlets
Getty Images

Fox News’ Selective Silence: How Trump’s Worst Moments Vanish From Coverage

Last week, the ultraconservative news outlet, NewsMax, reached a $73 million settlement with the voting machine company, Dominion, in essence, admitting that they lied in their reporting about the use of their voting machines to “rig” or distort the 2020 presidential election. Not exactly shocking news, since five years later, there is no credible evidence to suggest any malfeasance regarding the 2020 election. To viewers of conservative media, such as Fox News, this might have shaken a fully embraced conspiracy theory. Except it didn’t, because those viewers haven’t seen it.

Many people have a hard time understanding why Trump enjoys so much support, given his outrageous statements and damaging public policy pursuits. Part of the answer is due to Fox News’ apparent censoring of stories that might be deemed negative to Trump. During the past five years, I’ve tracked dozens of examples of news stories that cast Donald Trump in a negative light, including statements by Trump himself, which would make a rational person cringe. Yet, Fox News has methodically censored these stories, only conveying rosy news that draws its top ratings.

Keep ReadingShow less
U.S. Flag / artificial intelligence / technology / congress / ai

The age of AI warrants asking if the means still further the ends—specifically, individual liberty and collective prosperity.

Getty Images, Douglas Rissing

Liberty and the General Welfare in the Age of AI

If the means justify the ends, we’d still be operating under the Articles of Confederation. The Founders understood that the means—the governmental structure itself—must always serve the ends of liberty and prosperity. When the means no longer served those ends, they experimented with yet another design for their government—they did expect it to be the last.

The age of AI warrants asking if the means still further the ends—specifically, individual liberty and collective prosperity. Both of those goals were top of mind for early Americans. They demanded the Bill of Rights to protect the former, and they identified the latter—namely, the general welfare—as the animating purpose for the government. Both of those goals are being challenged by constitutional doctrines that do not align with AI development or even undermine it. A full review of those doctrines could fill a book (and perhaps one day it will). For now, however, I’m just going to raise two.

Keep ReadingShow less