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How Election Reviews Threaten Voter Data Security  

Republican-led reviews of the 2020 election results have led security experts to warn of risks to voter data and related infrastructure, according to multiple recent reports.

ballot 1294935 640 smallIn Pennsylvania, as The Washington Post reports, state Republican lawmakers have voted to subpoena an array of voter data as part of their 2020 election review. The subpoena covers all of the states’ 7 million voters and includes data that’s a treasure trove for hackers, such as birth dates, driver’s license numbers and the last four digits of Social Security numbers.

Security analysts express concern that putting all that data in one place and then handing it over to a private company, as intended, could make it much more likely that the information will fall into the wrong hands. Maurice Turner, cybersecurity fellow at the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy, told the Post “All of the information being requested by this subpoena is exactly what a criminal would need to steal someone’s identity and open up fraudulent accounts in the names of any of these voters.”

Beyond Pennyslviana, as The New York Times reports, the roughly half dozen election reviews taking place in states around the country pose potential threats to the integrity of voting machines and software.

One night last May in Colorado, according to authorities, surveillance cameras were off when three people—including the Republican county clerk in charge of overseeing elections—went into a secure area and copied crucial voting data.

Arizona officials will replace voting machines in the state’s biggest county after unauthorized people, including Republican operatives, had lengthy access to them. A video circulated by a right-wing lawyer in Michigan worried election officials because it showed a consultant demonstrating a vote tabulator that should not, the officials said, have been in the consultant’s possession.

J. Alex Halderman, a professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Michigan who studies election security, warned the Times of “some serious security risks. Especially given the constellation of actors who are receiving such access.”

Back in Pennsylvania, the state’s senate Democrats have sued their Republican colleagues to block the subpoena, as The Philadelphia Inquirer reports. David Becker, head of the nonprofit Center for Election Innovation & Research, told local public radio station WHYY that Pennsylvania’s Republicans were “playing Russian roulette with the personal information of every single registered Pennsylvania voter.”

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