Oklahoma U.S. Senator James Lankford said Wednesday election officials across the country need to prepare for attempted hacks during the 2018 and 2020 elections.
"If they're able to engage in any state election system, alter any data or exfiltrate any data in 2018, I cannot imagine the pressure both on that state and on the federal government to be able to explain when we had two years of warning," Lankford said.
Lankford is on the Senate Intelligence Committee, one of two congressional committees told Wednesday that Russia tried to hack 21 states’ voting systems before the 2016 election. While neither vote tallies nor voting machines were compromised, hackers did get to some state’s voter rolls.
"And if they can get to a voter registration roll, could they add people? Could they delete people? Could they change data? Could they complicate the process on election day? If they can get to that data, what else could they get to?" Lankford said.
Lankford said Oklahoma’s use of paper ballots and scanning machines allows for hand counts in case of direct vote manipulation.
Lankford said Russian hacking attempts on 21 state election systems last year started with a phishing attack of Democratic National Committee staff. Lankford asked Bill Priestap in FBI counterintelligence how foreign hackers are finding their targets.
"Are they going to their website, for instance, and gathering all the emails for it, trying to figure out? Are they tracking individuals to get more information so they get something that looks like something they would click on?" Lankford said.
"You've hit on it, but a whole variety of ways," Priestap said. "They might get it through reviewing open-source material, either online or otherwise, but they also collect a lot of information through human means."
Neither officials nor lawmakers have named the 21 states Russia targeted during last year's election.
