Democracy in Danger: How Hackers and Activists Exposed Fatal Flaws in the Election System

by Jake Braun

Protecting the Vote

When cybersecurity expert Jake Braun challenged hackers at DEFCON, the largest hacking conference in the world, to breach the security of an American voting machine, a hacker in Europe conquered the task in less than 2 minutes. From hacking into voting machines to more mundane, but no less serious problems, our democracy faces unprecedented tests from without and within. In Democracy In Danger, Braun, a veteran of 3 presidential campaigns and former White House Liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, reveals what the national security apparatus, local election administrators, and political parties have gotten wrong about election security and what America needs to do to protect the ballot box in 2020 and beyond.

176 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 15, 2019

Reviews

[Peachy LaVelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every American should have to read this. We were told LIES about the security of our elections.

[Diane · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating, alarming deep-dive into everything wrong with our election system, from underfunded, mismanaged local elections resulting in hours-long lines to vote, to hacking from enemy states and no coherent or competent defense in place. The author Jake Braun worked on two presidential campaigns before becoming President Obama's liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, specializing in cyber-security. No one is better positioned to write a book on this topic from both a local and global perspective. His writing style is very conversational, making complex topics accessible to a broad audience.
I highly recommend this to anyone concerned with the state of our democracy, especially as the 2020 election approaches.

[Lance Eaton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Braun's work makes for a very uncomfortable read about the current state of affairs with the US election system. He effectively captures the critical issues that permeate the technical and political infrastructure of the US election system to show how a perfect storm of events could easily undermine any sense of democracy and the belief in a democratically-elected government. His evidence and his argument show how Americans are largely fooled by the current discourse on "hackers" interfering in our election to make us think it is a simple singular issue or two or that somehow, we'll actually know it happens. Instead, he traces the many different entry points with Russia, China, or really, anyone could easily disrupt the process. Often, these are small ways such as hacking the voter rolls and changing/removing 5%. That's enough to disrupt the process (if 5% of the folks must take longer and are given provision ballots--it causes a downstream effect of long lines, more confusion, and such) and since there are essentially 50 states enacting this in different ways and without much cross-communication, it means a lot of little disruptions can significantly impact the 2020 election or any election for that matter. What's chilling about Braun's book is how he illustrates how easy it is such as when he shows kids hacking voting websites or how easy it is to get passed "air-gapped" machines, even when one doesn't have the resources of a government at their back. The end result is a wake-up call to all of us to think about and understand how very fragile our democracy is and how vulnerable our election system is. We are likely facing tactics moving forward that may have been hard to do in the past but with the technological infrastructure (including news media, which can also impact the situation as Braun points out), there are many ways to do harm and very few people within the current administration or across the country in each state are doing anything about it.