With only one week left for the United States Presidential Election of 2016, scheduled for Tuesday I.e November 8,2016, the populace is understandably concerned about the integrity of US election 2016 big date.
As media is buzzing with reports that there is a sure threat from Russian Cyber attacks, US Presidential election polls officials and cyber experts say it’s virtually impossible for the Moscow or any other outside group to influence the US election results outcome.
Here the key concern, experts feel is public perception: Inducing distrust is easily achieved even without the successful hack and this can influence the election outcome to a major extent.
So, what makes the 58th quadrennial US President Elections Cyber-Secure?
According to election officials and some to cyber experts, the American election system is decentralized by design, and so the voting will be managed by the state, country, and local governments. So, there is no question of hackers hijacking the central database to rig the elections.
Moreover, 60% of it is being managed by paper voting and only 40% of voting will be managed by voting machines. And none of them US electoral machines will be connected to the internet, nor are they connected to each other.
So, at this juncture, US 2016 election candidate probables can only influence the outcome of a presidential election or statewide race by physical tampering on a grand scale across multiple states on Election Day.
Moreover, as per the orders from the White House, election officials are putting the voting machines to rigorous pre-election testing every cycle, and many states do post-election audits to verify results as well.
Furthermore, state officials will be guided by certain voting technology standards and certificates from time to time by the Election Assitance Commission. This will give an added security for the entire electoral event.
However, registration databases will be vulnerable to hackers as many of them are connected to the web. Recently, hackers barged into the database of Illinois and succeeded in stealing roughly around 90,000 voters info, such as their names, driver license numbers and last four digits of their Social Security Numbers. There is a high probability that hackers will use this data to influence the voting system of the state.
So, should voters be worried of electing the wrong candidate?
Absolutely not! There is no chance of hacking or influencing the upcoming elections in any way. But media propelled 2016 presidential election psychic predictions could trigger unnecessary fears and panic among the voters which could lead to a different situation on an overall note.
