You’ve probably heard, ad nauseam that the 2020 presidential election was the “most secure” in history.

How do we know that? Did voting machines change? Were software upgrades put in place to protect against malware? Will 2024 be just as secure?

We’re not trying to be pessimistic about Election Day 2024; these are genuine questions to ask heading into November 5. Why? Because a documentary exists that probably isn’t even on your radar, Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America’s Elections released in 2020 by HBO.

This film follows Harri Hursti, a Finnish computer programmer and election expert, as he investigates the 2016 election in various states and counties. You probably wouldn’t know Husti’s name unless you saw his 2006 HBO documentary, Hacking Democracy, but that film details how in 2005, Hursti showed with ease how to digitally change votes on a Diebold voting machine using only a memory card.

In fact, the bad press from the first documentary contributed to Diebold Election Systems becoming Dominion Voting Systems. Funnily enough, Dominion still uses newer versions of Diebold’s systems.

Why Does This Matter Today?

Now you might be thinking, Why bring up a 2020 film about election integrity in 2024?

I do it because there is evidence this film would have been used to question the validity of the 2020 election results if Joe Biden had lost. Check out this statement in the film from the cited source, Verfied Voting:

“The same machine that Hursti hacked in 2005 is slated for use in 20 states for the 2020 election.”

Diebold becomes Dominion; Dominion repackages the software; and you use that modified software to cast your vote, hoping against reason that it is more secure in 2024 than it was in 2005.

The Election Assistance Commission (EAC) maintains a video on its site which “explains how the decentralized American election administration system protects election integrity.” Hursti argues in Kill Chain, “The laws are actually very similar across the U.S., but so are the voting machines.”

The United States uses three main vendors to run our election machinery:

1. Dominion Voting Systems
2. Election System & Software (ES&S)
3. Hart InterCivic, Inc.

These vendors use proprietary software on their machines, making accountability for the security of the software their responsibility. We don’t get to know how this software works.

Interestingly, voting machine companies declined to be interviewed for Kill Chain. Recorded Future reported in 2016 that on December 1 of that year, a person using the pseudonym “Rasputin” gained full administrative access to the EAC. This included the ability to download information and upload any file he might have wanted — as well as change information without leaving a trace.

“Rasputin’s” main goal, however, appears to have been selling information from the servers, as well as how he hacked his way in.

No Internet Connection

According to the U.S. State Department, asymmetrical warfare is, “Warfare in which belligerents are mismatched in their military capabilities or their accustomed methods of engagement.” According to Douglas Lute, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general and former ambassador to NATO, “The internet is a perfect asymmetrical tool.”

But voting machines aren’t connected to the internet … right? You might recall the boast that voting machines in 2020 were only connected to local area networks for security, never to external network. Hursti points out the problem with this:

“[A] local area network can always be connected to Internet. So the reality here is once you are connected to the network, you don’t know where the network is. What else is connected to the internet?”

This access can lead to elections being altered subtly, even in ways that are undetectable if you don’t know what you’re looking for. How do we trust election results if this is the case?

This film doesn’t go into the world of ballot harvesting the way Dinesh D’Souza’s film, 2000 Mules, did, nor does it really dive into hackers’ ability to use cell phones as a means to tamper with voting systems. In case you’re about to say, “But you can’t have your phone out in the voting room,” watch the poll workers when you vote in November. While voters are banned from having their cell phone in the booths, poll workers are exempt because they might need to make a call if a situation arises such as a machine malfunctioning or someone needs a new poll book.

These are twenty-first century problems. What did we do before the invention of cell phones or voting systems? Let’s return to the old ways.

Paper Ballots, Risk-Limiting Audits, and Signature Verifications

As Philip Stark, distinguished professor at the University of California-Berkeley, puts it in Kill Chain, “The fundamental problem with electronic voting technology is the evidence that it produces about who actually won. Most of them don’t produce really convincing evidence, and the best technology for voter verification is hand-marked paper ballots. We need a trustworthy paper trail.”

Since election laws are not the same across the board, it can seem like we now have a hopeless situation of just “getting by” with the safest elections we can muster. But there is hope!

While we may not be able to do anything about the devices used for the upcoming 2024 elections, there is a list of Ballot Do’s and Don’ts you can follow:

1) DO: Vote on Election Day! Try not to early vote or by mail-in ballot.

2) DO: Bring and use your own BLUE (not black, if possible) ballpoint pen.

3) DO: Write your signature the way it appears on you driver’s license.

4) DO: Fill out ALL ovals including all the down ballot races. DO YOUR HOMEWORK!

5) DO: Fill out the entire oval as best you can, but stay within the margins. (The machines have variable settings, and we don’t know what that setting will be.)

6) DO: Call your sheriff immediately if poll workers say you’ve already voted. (This is identity theft, and it is a crime.) Stay put until the sheriff is notified and your information is recorded. Be prepared to submit an affidavit.

7) DON’T: Circle the candidate’s name or make ANY mark outside the oval!

8) DON’T: Fill in the oval and additionally write the candidate’s name in the “write in” spot. (This is considered an “over vote,” and will throw the ballot to adjudication, where it may not be counted.)

Another great resource you must explore is Jovan Hutton Pulitzer — particularly this podcast, in which he answers questions about election security and discusses his book, Countdown to Chaos: Silent Federalization of Elections (independently published, 2023).

Every election is crucial, even the little local ones. Do your homework and vote on Election Day!

Gayle McQueary is The Stream’s social media specialist. She has a background in production and is a scary judge of poor voting policies and practices.