Report: Trump Administration Has Done Next to Nothing to Prevent Future Election Hacking
By Chas Danner at New York Magazine
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/06/trump-has-done-almost-nothing-to-protect-elections-report.html
"SNIP..............
The Trump administration has done little to prepare for, or prevent, future election hacking like the kind that occurred during last year’s presidential campaign, an investigation by NBC News has learned. Experts and government officials at the state and federal level report that the U.S. government is woefully unprepared for future attacks — like one on the 2018 midterms — citing both indifference from President Trump and others in the White House, as well as the Trump administration’s failure to properly staff federal agencies responsible for dealing with such threats, like the Department of Homeland Security.
As far as what can be done to better protect American elections, the report outlined how “the Russian campaign to disrupt the 2016 election involved at least three tiers:”
The promotion of false stories through social media; the hacking and leaking of embarrassing material from political campaigns; and the cyber intrusions into state voter registration and election databases that could have — but didn’t — cause major disruptions at polling places around the country.
Each of those three attack vectors requires different defenses, experts say. On the fake news front, the government would need to coordinate with tech companies to slow the flow of false information. In terms of Russian intelligence hacking and leaking, experts say Vladimir Putin needs to be shown that he will incur a high cost if that tactic is repeated. And state election systems need to be better armored against cyber attack, and fully equipped to audit the vote if a successful attack occurs.
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= new reply since forum marked as read
and it was essentially spelled out in an article that David Corn recently wrote a few days ago regarding efforts last summer to try to address the vunerabilities, including testimony from Jeh Johnson -
|***States Rebuffed Federal Help on Russian Hacking, Says Former DHS Head
”My staff and I repeatedly encouraged state and local election officials to seek our cybersecurity assistance.”
David Corn Jun. 21, 2017 11:40 AM
Appearing before the House Intelligence Committee task force investigating the Russian attack on the 2016 election, former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson had a troubling message: During that campaign, he had a tough time convincing state election officials that they needed federal help to fend off Moscow’s assault on the US elections system. While Johnson was testifying, Department of Homeland Security and FBI officials told the Senate Intelligence Committee that Russian cyber operatives had targeted 21 state election systems, although they didn’t provide details on what those attacks entailed. For his part, Johnson described how he became worried about this secret Russian operation and found it difficult to work with state officials to defend the voting systems.
Johnson recounted all this in his opening statement:
<...>
On August 3, 2016, in an on-the-record session with reporters, I publicly floated the idea of designating election infrastructure in this country as critical infrastructure.
Twelve days later, on August 15, I convened a conference call with secretaries of state and other chief election officials of every state in the country. I told state officials that we must ensure the security and resilience of election infrastructure, and offered DHS’s assistance to the states in doing that. I also reiterated the idea of designating election infrastructure as critical infrastructure.
To my disappointment, the reaction to a critical infrastructure designation, at least from those who spoke up, ranged from neutral to negative. Those who expressed negative views stated that running elections in this country was the sovereign and exclusive responsibility of the states, and they did not want federal intrusion, a federal takeover, or federal regulation of that process. This was a profound misunderstanding of what a critical infrastructure designation would mean, which I tried to clarify for them.
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http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/06/states-rebuffed-federal-help-on-russian-hacking-says-former-dhs-head/ ***|
Since the election systems are controlled by the states and you have states yelling "states rights!!1111!!!" and "government get off my lawn!!!!!1!!11" then you know we are fucked. But then it's Pelosi's fault and Obama's fault. 
