Security

Election Security 2020: How to Protect Election Data and Voter Information [#Infographic]

Network protection and cybersecurity training are essential security techniques when a critical system is under attack.

Elizabeth Neus is the managing editor of FedTech. Before joining FedTech, Elizabeth was a reporter for Gannett, covering health care policy and medicine. As a Gannett editor, she worked on publications and magazines focusing on everything from defense to agriculture to travel to shopping. The Washington Nationals are her team; 80s Brit pop is her sound.

Secretaries of state and local boards of election must protect their voter databases as closely as possible, even as they keep that information accessible to temporary poll workers, election officials and state officials who need it to do their jobs.

Securing that data is essential: Voters provide the foundation for the nation’s election system — not just in their actions, but in their names, addresses and Social Security numbers. It’s information that is tempting bait for malicious actors who want to affect an election’s outcome.

Like any system with multiple endpoints, security efforts focus on the data, not just the network, especially in the case of voter databases. Those live in many locations — the site where a citizen actually registers, the board of elections itself, the electronic poll books at polling places on Election Day, websites where the public can go to check registration status or find election results.

No matter what kind of election is being held, be it for city council in a small town or president of the United States, protecting the network and databases that make voting possible is essential. Here’s a look at how it’s done: