Cybersecurity and coronavirus do not worry nonpartisan election experts as much as disinformation does
With less than one month to go before one of the most consequential elections in American history, experts are watching to see how well the complex and sometimes unwieldy U.S. election machinery performs across three areas: cybersecurity, physical constraints necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the danger posed by disinformation.
While federal and state officials have taken significant steps since 2016 to address cybersecurity and physical security, the absence of a strong federal effort to combat disinformation about elections remains the biggest concern, experts said.
Cybersecurity emerged as one of the main weaknesses in the 2016 election when Russian spies tried to penetrate election systems in all 50 states. Since then, several federal agencies have beefed up countermeasures to stop a repeat of similar attempts. Continue reading.