The Election Assistance Commission is poised to approve new voting security standards this week, but election security experts are ringing alarm bells over a last-minute change they call "profoundly ill-advised and unacceptably insecure."
Ahead of Wednesday's vote, the federal agency tweaked a section of the proposal to allow for disabled wireless technology to be included in voting equipment — a move election security experts say would pose a serious cybersecurity threat to the United States.
Experts fear this change could also undermine efforts to build back trust in the nation's election systems after a divisive 2020 contest that millions of Americans still erroneously believe was stolen from former President Donald Trump.
The so-called Voluntary Voting System Guidelines 2.0 is the first set of new voting security standards put forth by the EAC in 15 years. The draft clarifies that wireless hardware within a voting system is permitted, as long as the wireless connection is disabled. The agency said an outright ban on wireless technology would make obtaining voting equipment more difficult and costly for states.
But nearly two dozen computer science, security and election integrity experts wrote to the EAC last week warning that wireless devices, even if disabled, would "profoundly weaken" voting system security and significantly increase the chances of remote cyberattacks.
"If wireless networking capability is there, it is inevitable that it will get turned on and used," the letter says. "It would be a recklessly naïve mistake to expect that procedures and processes could ensure that the wireless capability could or would not be activated, intentionally or unintentionally."
Wireless voting technology is already banned in California, Colorado, New York and Texas. The guidelines being considered by the EAC will serve as a benchmark for 38 states when determining what voting equipment to use. The other 12 states will more strictly follow the standards.
Election security experts are not only concerned with the changes in the proposal, but also how the alterations were made. The good-government group Free Speech For People alleges the EAC violated the Help America Vote Act because commissioners met with voting system vendors in non-public meetings before releasing the amended draft. Passed in 2002 to reform the country's voting systems, HAVA established the EAC and requires the agency's work to be public-facing.
"The EAC's attempted end-run around the Help America Vote Act and avoidance of public scrutiny endanger the security of America's elections and violate federal law," Ron Fein and Susan Greenhalgh of Free Speech For People wrote in a separate letter sent to the EAC last week.
But the EAC maintains it followed the appropriate procedures required by HAVA and the clarification was made in accordance with feedback received during the public comment period. Five days before the scheduled vote on the proposed guidelines, the agency published a six-page document to "dispel misinformation" about it.
The document notes that the EAC worked closely and held frequent meetings with experts at the National Institute of Standards and Technology to clean up the voting guidelines' language to remove redundancies and improve clarity.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.