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Tags: voting technology | election security | hacking

Tech Problems, Disinformation Threaten to Undermine Faith in Election

workers set up voting equipment
Gwinnett County poll workers set voting equipment at the Lucky Shoals Park Community Recreation Center in Norcross, Ga., on the last day of early voting on Friday, Oct. 30, 2020. (Hyosub Shin/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)

By    |   Monday, 02 November 2020 11:47 AM EST

Technical difficulties could cause problems in the general election on Tuesday, but election security experts say that the greater threat is the impact glitches and disinformation could have on American’s faith in the election’s integrity, Politico reports.

A group of voting security experts recently wrote in the peer-reviewed Election Law Journal that ballot-marking devices known as BMDs are being used in Georgia in the general election for the first time for all voters, raising concerns over the machines' "essential security flaws," noting: "there is no way to deter, contain, or correct computer hacking in BMDs."

Other experts say that a machine doesn’t even have to be hacked; Americans just have to believe that the technology is unreliable to cast doubt on the election's results.

"Any kind of disinformation about election-related technology, even if there is no hack, is cause for concern, because to be effective, all that is required is for the public to perceive a problem — whether real or not," said Eddie Perez, the global director of technology development and open standards at the Open Source Election Technology Institute, a group that advocates for election technology.

"Bad things sometimes happen," noted Christopher Krebs, who heads the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency within the Department of Homeland Security.

He said in a statement released last month that "the election experience is designed to ensure that technology isn't a single point of failure and there are measures in place to ensure you can vote and your vote is counted correctly. You should have confidence in the integrity of the process and don't overreact to claims that exaggerate the importance of insignificant events."

Theodore Bunker

Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.

© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.


Politics
Technical difficulties could cause problems in the general election on Tuesday, but election security experts say that the greater threat is the impact glitches and disinformation could...
voting technology, election security, hacking
271
2020-47-02
Monday, 02 November 2020 11:47 AM
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