From malware to fake social media posts, election officials across the country have been busy trying to keep Tuesday's midterm elections safe under constant cyber attacks.
“For Texas voters, it's really all about the machines, especially if it's direct electronic voting with now paper audit trail,” says Rob Marvin, associate features manager for PCMag.com.
“If the electronic voting machine is hacked or if there are just basic issues with inconsistencies in what people are entering and what is actually being counted, that you have a paper audit trail to verify those results against, and in Texas we don't have that.”
But it's also all the software used to set up an election, manage it, and collect results.
“There's a much different level of awareness about all the different ways our elections could be vulnerable.”
Americans are smarter about election hacking than we were two years ago,especially the role of digital and social media.
“In the days up to the election, all these bombshell data leaks come out that are designed to make you think and ultimately vote a certain way, that was something new in 2016 for the U.S., we had never seen in that in our elections before,” says Marvin.
“So in 2018, it's a lot more on people's minds.
Cyber security experts warn the attacks will continue, and likely get worse heading into the 2020 presidential election.