Did Technology Fail Us?: Security Concerns in Safeguarding Democracy

Electronic voting machines replaced paper ballots too quickly. To date, many such machines have been proven unreliable and unsecure. Due to speculations about foreign tampering attempts with the U.S. election, these machines have received further attention. The addition of paper records and a separate audit mechanism are two ways machine vulnerabilities could be overcome prior to the 2018 election. In this paper, we investigate the state of voting technology and the electoral process in the U.S. Additionally, we will analyze the foreign interference attempts in the 2016 U.S. general elections.