The National Academies of Science have released Securing the Vote: Protecting American Democracy . The consensus report richly documents how, during the 2016 presidential election, actors sponsored by the Russian government attacked the US voting and election infrastructure. The report assesses the web of technology infrastructures related to voting, and gives detailed recommendations for strengthening these infrastructures, from municipal to state to federal governments, to vendors.
One recommendation that stood out was to provide “voting data breach” notification of any efforts “to probe, tamper with, or interfere with voter registration systems” to the Department of Homeland Security, the US Elections Assistance Commission, and state officials. Vendors and others would make the notifications. This is an excellent recommendation, and one that can and should be implemented immediately.
One impact of current US data breach notification laws is that we now have overwhelming proof of the reality of data breaches in every area where breach reporting is mandatory, for example, certain financial data breaches and medical data breaches. Reporting voting infrastructure data breaches should be similarly mandatory, and breach reports should be accessible to the public.
Related Documents:
Securing the Vote: Protecting American Democracy is available online.
- Read the NAS report free online here: https://www.nap.edu/read/25120/chapter/1 .
- Purchase a copy of the NAS report here: https://www.nap.edu/catalog/25120/securing-the-vote-protecting-american-democracy .