These groups try to hack the vote – so that real criminals can't

Estonia is bolstering its cybersecurity against Russian would-be hackers on a shoestring budget and a brigade of volunteers, called the "nerd reserves." Hailing from Estonia's rich IT community, as well as other industries like education and law, the volunteers engage in a range of defensive activities like planning elaborate simulated cyberexercises and giving talks at elementary schools.

CekFakta is a collaborative network that fights misinformation with around 6,000 fact-checkers from major Indonesian media organizations, citizens, and academics. The group holds training sessions to help journalists identify doctored images and misinformation, with the idea that participants will pass the skills on to their colleagues. CekFakta impacted 2019 presidential debates with large-scale, real-time, collaborative fact-checking that enabled a quick release of fact-checked information. The collaborative process is key to helping people find high-quality information amid so much online content.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) built up its digital defenses, successfully protecting the 2018 midterm election from the cyber-hacking that occurred in 2016. The DNC now trains staff to spot cyber threats, conducts simulated phishing campaigns to test employees’ vigilance, and security staffers regularly meet with their House and Senate campaign counterparts to offer their security expertise. The DNC also requires protections, such as two-factor authentication, which requires a temporary code in addition to a user’s password and conducts regular “spot checks” of Democrats’ cybersecurity practices.

During West Virginia’s primary elections, a pilot program used blockchain technology and a mobile app to record votes. The aim was to improve election security and make it easier for Americans abroad to cast their ballots. Critics say that the program left many security issues unsolved.

Police in New York already use algorithms to fight crime and now they have turned to a tech startup that uses algorithms to gauge trust levels towards citizens. The so-called “sentiment meter” is meant to address where police are falling short with the community and it has garnered the interest of police departments in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Grand Rapids, Mich., as well. But some are skeptical of the data methods and what they are actually measuring.

To combat election-related mis- and disinformation, a Google initiative called Jigsaw launched campaigns in Indonesia and Eastern Europe with videos “inoculating” viewers against false information by explaining common manipulation techniques that could be used to mislead them. Surveys showed that people who viewed the videos were up to 5 percent more likely to correctly identify attempts at manipulation.

After Michiganders approved a constitutional amendment allowing residents to vote early in federal and statewide elections, municipal clerks reported that the state’s first test of early voting in November 2023 was a success with nearly 4,600 people casting ballots.

Estonia's e-governance system allows citizens to register for social programs, access health records, and complete most government business digitally. In March 2023, more than half of the country's voters cast their ballots via the internet for the first time.

To bolster the security of the 2022 midterm election, officials released frequent alerts and updates about disinformation, cyber threats, and potential physical threats to election workers. A special task force investigated threats against election officials and brought forward four federal cases and several state prosecutions related to the incidents.

Ahead of the midterms, election officials ramped up their communication, outreach, and transparency efforts, setting up live cameras at ballot boxes and in counting rooms, offering special sealed ballots to voters who requested their ballot be hand-counted, and coordinating with organizations that trained volunteers to prevent voter intimidation at polling sites. Though a handful of election deniers continued to sow doubt in the system, experts and poll workers say the election generally ran smoothly and the majority of losing candidates have accepted the results of their races.