Election officials want more funds to combat midterm election cyber threats
Below: This week’s web attacks in Ukraine were the largest the nation has ever faced, and another cyber-focused lawmaker is retiring from Congress.
Election officials are in a money crunch
Election officials are facing a barrage of cybersecurity threats as the midterms approach.
But chances are slim that Congress will pitch in any money to help out.
Their wish list includes:
- More cyber testing for election office computer networks.
- Cyber training for election workers and volunteers.
- Better physical security to ensure outsiders and rogue staffers can’t monkey with election machines so they’re unsafe to use.
That’s on top of money they need for a suite of non-cyber challenges, including replacing staff who’ve quit amid a wave of death threats against election workers, inspired by former president Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud, as Mike DeBonis and Amy Gardner report.
The money crunch is a common dilemma for election officials who’ve faced one crisis after another in recent years, including Russian interference in the 2016 contest, the coronavirus pandemic and disinformation campaigns about elections from foreign and domestic sources.
Congress has kicked in to help — including about $800 million for election security between 2016 and 2020 along with another $400 million to run safe elections during the coronavirus pandemic. But that’s only a fraction of what officials have said is necessary to make elections as secure as possible.
“When election officials don’t have sufficient funds to run elections, they have to make tough choices and the truth is those choices can adversely impact the accessibility and security of elections,” David Levine, an election integrity fellow at the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy, told me.
Election funding proposals have ranged from $20 billion sought by Democratic election officials to a more modest request for $5 billion in the next budget cycle.
The Bipartisan Policy Center has suggested spending about $400 million annually on elections and focusing on ideas favored by Republicans and Democrats.
