Georgia’s voting software remains vulnerable as updates are postponed until after 2024.

Georgia Election Officials Delay Updating Voting Software Despite Known Vulnerabilities

According to an unsealed report, Georgia election officials have decided not to update the state’s voting software until after the 2024 elections, despite the existence of known vulnerabilities. This decision has raised concerns about the security of the Dominion Voting machines used in the state.

A lawyer representing Georgia GOP Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger recently informed a federal court that security patches for Dominion Voting machines would not be installed until after the 2024 presidential election. Federal cybersecurity officials have already verified weaknesses in Dominion’s machines and recommended that states using the software upgrade their systems.

“Upgrading the system will be a massive undertaking, and our election officials are evaluating the scope of, and time required for the project,” said Mike Hassinger, a spokesman for the Georgia secretary of state’s office, in an interview with CNN.

Despite the concerns raised in the unsealed report, state officials have downplayed the risks. Raffensperger’s chief operating officer, Gabriel Sterling, stated, “It’s extremely unlikely that any bad actor would be able to exploit our voting systems in the real world. The system is secure. The procedural safeguards we have in place mitigate these hypothetical scenarios from happening.”

The report identified six attack scenarios that exposed alleged weaknesses in the voting security of Dominion’s machines. However, a separate report by Dominion and Mitre Corp., a not-for-profit research lab, countered the initial findings, stating that five of the attack scenarios were “non-scalable” and would only impact a statistically insignificant number of votes on a single device at a time.

While Dominion upgraded its security software in Michigan in response to the report, Georgia has faced criticism for not taking similar action. University of Michigan computer scientist Alex Halderman, who authored the report, criticized the delay, stating, “[Delaying] is worse than doing nothing. It puts would-be adversaries on notice that the state will conduct the presidential election with this particular version of software with known vulnerabilities, giving them nearly 18 months to prepare and deploy attacks.”

The decision to postpone the software update comes amid ongoing controversy surrounding Dominion voting machines since the 2020 presidential election. Former President Donald Trump alleged widespread voter fraud in Georgia, and an investigation into his efforts to overturn the election is currently underway in Fulton County.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has requested that in-person hearings be postponed for parts of August, indicating that charges related to attempts to overturn the election results may be forthcoming this summer.

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