Will Russia Hack Georgia’s Election? Report Says It's A Possibility

Georgia’s voting systems are susceptible to hacking, and the state has dragged its feet addressing the issue, Politico reported Wednesday. The report arrived ahead of the state's forthcoming election, which was scheduled for next week.

The race will fill the seat vacated by Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price. The race pitted Democrat Jon Ossoff , a first-time candidate, against Republican Karen Handel, who was previously Georgia’s Secretary of State. According to the Washington Post last week, the June 20 special House race in Georgia’s sixth district has become the most expensive in history.

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Elections in Georgia are overseen by a central hub at Kennesaw University called the Center for Election Systems, which was founded in 2002. Politico spoke to security experts that found the systems easy to hack into.

“I was absolutely stunned, just the sheer quantity of files I had acquired,” said Logan Lamb, a former cybersecurity research told Politico about testing the vulnerabilities of Georgia’s system.

Last year Lamb was able to collect “registration records for the state’s 6.7 million voters; multiple PDFs with instructions and passwords for election workers to sign in to a central server on Election Day; and software files for the state’s ExpressPoll pollbooks — electronic devices used by poll workers to verify that a voter is registered before allowing them to cast a ballot,” Politico reported.

The center also didn’t immediately report to the state the vulnerabilities Lamb told them about, according to a March report from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Lamb found some other weaknesses and was concerned that other hackers had been there before him and had installed malware. Lamb went to state officials and was ignored.

A motion filed by the Executive Director Marilyn Marks of a constitutional liberty group, the Rocky Mountain Foundation and other activists to use paper ballots instead of the electronic system was denied. In their motion, the activists said the “voting system is uncertifiable, unsafe and inaccurate.”

The Journal-Constitution reported that the Center said they are working on the issues.

The Intercept released an NSA document in the beginning of June that showed Russian attempts to hack the presidential election were more substantial than previously known. The NSA’s analysis outlines spear-phishing, a technique where spoof e-mails are used to try and get the recipient to click links or open attachments that contain malware. The attacks targeted an election software company and 122 local election officials.

Bloomberg reported Tuesday that cyber attacks by Russian hackers affected 39 states.

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This Georgia election takes on a special significance given the money that has poured into the district from national donors and its outsized coverage. President Donald Trump has tweeted often about the race and visited Georgia to fundraise for Handel. Ossoff has exceeded expectations in the district that has been in Republican control for decades. Ossoff came just short of winning the seat outright in the first round of voting, forcing a run-off with Handel.

The two previous House races this year received increased coverage, with Democrats framing the contests as referendums. The races in Kansas and Montana saw an increased amount of funding. Both races were in comfortably Republican districts and ultimately won by the GOP.