Hackers find vulnerabilities in voting machines — but officials say there's no time to fix them by Election Day

Participants at the Voting Village event at the 2024 DEF CON Hacking Conference in Las Vegas were able to uncover vulnerabilities in various voting machines, e-poll books, and other equipment used in elections across America — but officials say they do not have enough time to address these issues before Election Day in November.

As it has for nearly a decade, the DEF CON conference featured a Voting Village event that permitted some of the world's most skilled hackers to take their best shot at finding vulnerabilities in election-related equipment, including different sorts of voting machines, most of which are used in at least one jurisdiction in America, Politico reported.

'Even if you find a vulnerability next week in a piece of modern equipment that’s deployed in the field, there’s a challenge in getting the patch and getting the fix out to the state and local elections officials and onto the equipment before the November election.'

The event drew significant interest, and hackers stood in long lines to attempt to circumvent firewalls and other security tools meant to deter cybercriminals.

They also had to go out of their way to participate since Village Vote was held in an isolated area away from the main floor this year after some online users leveled threats and accused the event of undermining democracy.

According to Voting Village co-founder Harri Hursti, the list of security vulnerabilities discovered this year spanned "multiple pages," though he added that the total number of vulnerabilities was about average for Village Vote events.

The good news is that security vulnerabilities can often be fixed. The bad news is that the repair process takes time, and the 2024 election is only about 12 weeks away.

"Even if you find a vulnerability next week in a piece of modern equipment that’s deployed in the field, there’s a challenge in getting the patch and getting the fix out to the state and local elections officials and onto the equipment before the November election," explained Scott Algeier, executive director of the Information Technology-Information Sharing and Analysis Center.

"It’s not a 90-day fix," he continued.

Catherine Terranova, executive director of Voting Village, likewise doubted that anything could be done before November.

"As far as time goes, it is hard to make any real, major, systemic changes, but especially 90 days out from the election," she said. "It's particularly troubling during an election year like this."

The truncated timeframe is not the only problem. Hursti also expressed concerns about foreign adversaries.

"We are here only for two and a half days, and we find stuff," he said. "It would be stupid to assume that the adversaries don’t have absolute access to everything."

"If you don’t think this kind of place is running 24/7 in China, Russia, you’re kidding yourselves."

Politico reported that secretaries of state and other election officials attended the event, a sign that they are aware of potential problems with voting machines. However, these officials spent much of their time at the conference giving "talks on misinformation and disinformation threats facing the upcoming election," the outlet claimed.

"There’s so much basic stuff that should be happening and is not happening," Hursti claimed. "So yes, I’m worried about things not being fixed, but they haven’t been fixed for a long time, and I’m also angry about it."

Village Vote may be doing important work, drawing attention to vulnerabilities in American voting machines, but there are indications it may have a left-leaning political ideology.

For one thing, the main page of its website features the tagline "It takes a village to preserve democracy," seemingly adopting a phrase from Hillary Clinton, who penned a book entitled "It Takes a Village."

The social media accounts of some of its leaders likewise indicate that they harbor liberal opinions.

Chair of the board Matt Blaze proudly lists his preferred pronouns in his X bio.

An account believed to be run by secretary of the board David Jefferson retweeted a number of liberal messages and memes. One particularly disturbing meme retweeted by the account regurgitates the most extreme talking points of abortion supporters, including that pro-life advocates are "monitoring ... period apps."

Blaze News reached out to Village Vote to inquire about its apparent political biases but did not receive a response.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!