Overview

Election security is a vital aspect to any functioning democracy. In a world where elections are easily hacked, voters would lose trust in our system of government, throwing the legitimacy of our elected officials into question. We must accept the admonitions of our intelligence community and understand the significantly increased likelihood of a successful cyber-attack on the election infrastructure. And while our election officials are beginning to acknowledge the growing importance of election security, many vulnerabilities remain unchecked.

As a part of the 26th Annual DEFCON conference, the Voting Village made more than 30 pieces of voting machines and other equipment available to its participants. As the only public forum in the United States at which hackers have nearly unrestricted access to discover vulnerabilities in actual equipment, the Voting Village served as unique, collaborative enterprise. In addition, this year the Voting Village conducted unprecedented outreach to state and local election officials, inviting them to participate in the Village’s activities and receive free training from cybersecurity experts.

Authored after the event, the DEFCON 26 Voting Village Report highlights how every piece of equipment in the Village – which included machines still largely in use in current U.S. elections – was effectively breached in a matter of minutes by hackers. With the goal of the report to raise awareness about the inherent vulnerabilities in our electoral system, the Voting Village proved remarkably effective. Less than a month after the conference, press coverage of the Voting Village reached over 2.5 billion people and was covered by prominent journalistic outlets including The Washington Post, CNN, The Associated Press, and many others. This coverage has allowed the Voting Village Report to achieve its goals of making the public more aware of election security and putting pressure on election officials to take direct action to address vulnerabilities.