A leading Capitol Hill overseer is calling for federal officials to step up their efforts to protect voting machines and other election infrastructure from hackers.
In an Aug. 8 letter, Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, asked Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to designate election systems as critical infrastructure as a step toward offering federal protections to state and local operations.
“Election security is critical, and a cyberattack by foreign actors on our election systems could compromise the integrity of our voting process,” Carper wrote. “Designating election systems as critical infrastructure could improve and expand our nation’s ability to prevent and to respond to potential cyberattacks originating both from inside or outside our borders.”
