Election Hacking: US Citizens May Not Turn Out For Midterms Over Cybersecurity Fears

One-fourth of voters in the United States are considering not voting in the 2018 midterm elections over cybersecurity fears stemming from hacking efforts targeting the 2016 presidential election, a recent survey found.

In a poll conducted by cybersecurity and antivirus firm Carbon Black, 5,000 eligible voters in the U.S. were asked a number of questions regarding election cybersecurity. The results show voters have a number of concerns when it comes to future elections, including doubts about the ability to ensure election integrity.

Read: US Election Hacked? Voter Rolls Altered, Data Stolen By Russian Hackers, Report Says

While one in four voters said they would consider staying home from the polls entirely in 2018, less than half—45 percent—of the potential voters responding to the survey said they trust their state or district to keep their voting information safe.

Those concerns may have accelerated in recent weeks since the Donald Trump administration launched its commission on election integrity and asked for the full voter rolls of all 50 states. That data would include voter names, birthdays, voter history, and the last four digits of Social Security numbers. The commission has not put security protocols in place to ensure that data is kept private.

Also not quelling fear about voter data security were reports that Russian hackers were able to successfully access voter rolls in the lead up to the 2016 election. At least 90,000 voter records were stolen from Illinois alone, many of which contained driver’s licence and Social Security numbers. Russian agents also targeted election software manufacturers and compromised at least one.

Forty-seven percent of all voters surveyed said they believed a foreign entity influenced the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and many feared that future elections including the 2018 midterms may be at risk of similar interference.

Read: Can US Elections Be Hacked? Security Experts Call For More Protections Against Election Hacking

Nearly half of those polled, 45 percent, said Russia was the biggest cybersecurity risk to future elections. Seventeen percent pointed to North Korea as the biggest threat, while 11 percent said China and 4 percent said Iran. The second-biggest threat to the security of U.S. elections according to those polled was the U.S. itself, which 20 percent of people named as the top risk to impact an election.

“United States voters have had no shortage of cybersecurity news related to elections in recent months, ranging from allegations of Russian interference to revelations that specific states were targeted in attack campaigns,” Patrick Morley, president and CEO of Carbon Black, said in a statement.

“Among some of the frequent topics being discussed in the news have been political infighting, conjecture regarding collusion, and questions about what’s being done to prepare for the ‘next attack,’” Morley said.

Earlier this year, more than one hundred security researchers and experts signed on to a letter sent to member of the United States Congress to warn of their belief that not enough has been done to protect against potential threats to state and federal elections.