For the second day, House Democrats attempted to bring an amendment to the floor to fund grants to elections official so they can protect their systems from interference by Russians or anyone else. For the second day, Republicans blocked the move, which is more critical than ever right now.
Lost somewhat in the fall-out of the Surrender Summit between Russian asset Donald Trump and his primary handler Vladimir Putin was a truly alarming report about just how vulnerable our elections systems are to hacking, whether from Russians or just your run-of-the-mill larcenous Republican group. The nation's leading voting machine maker admitted to Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden that for six years it sold systems to a number of states that had software allowing remote access.
Vice's Motherboard got the letter Election Systems and Software sent to Wyden in April, in which ESS wrote that it "provided pcAnywhere remote connection software … to a small number of customers between 2000 and 2006." That contradicts a a statement the company gave in February to The New York Times and reporter Kim Zetter that they had never ever installed that software anywhere. "None of the employees, […] including long-tenured employees, has any knowledge that our voting systems have ever been sold with remote-access software," was the line back in April. Note that the actual voting machines used aren't what's at issue here, but the systems in county election offices where elections are managed. In some counties the voting machines are programmed with these systems and final voting results are tabulated from them.
ESS is the major elections system provider in the country and was during that six-year period, as well. Motherboard reports that "at least 60 percent of ballots cast in the US in 2006 were tabulated on ES&S election-management systems." That amounts to well more than one-half of votes across the country. In their letter to Wyden, ESS says only "a small number of customers" got the system with the software that makes it so easy to hack. It seems unlikely that it wouldn't have been included on all the systems shipped in those six years. In an interview with Motherboard, Wyden said "installing remote-access software and modems on election equipment 'is the worst decision for security short of leaving ballot boxes on a Moscow street corner.'"
What's unclear from the reporting is how many counties and states are still using this hackable software.
What we do know is that 41 states are operating with systems that are at least a decade old. We also know human and bureaucratic nature, so who knows how many of the elections offices affected actually ever updated or patched the system. ESS wouldn't tell Wyden which of its customers had the remote access software, but told him it "had confirmed with customers who had the software installed that they 'no longer have this application installed.'" But of course, ESS has proven that it will lie.
The intelligence community has verified that Russia not only interfered in the 2016 election, but that it is still actively engaged in "their efforts to undermine our democracy," as Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats affirmed last week. FBI Director Christopher A. Wray concurs. "My view has not changed, which is that Russia attempted to interfere with the last election and continues to engage in malign influence operations to this day," he said Wednesday. While he says that "we haven't yet seen an effort to target specific election infrastructure," as happened in 2016, "we could be just a moment away from the next level."