Uploaded November 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Physical security has long been a core component of voting system defenses through the use of keyed locks and tamper-evident seals/tape/stickers. With procedural protections requiring their use, arbitrary voters are explicitly permitted to physically interact with these systems in a semi-private setting (voting booth) under the assumption that the hardware’s attack surface can be sufficiently scoped to a set of intended, known-safe interactions (i.e. limit/prevent access to I/O interfaces, administrative controls, storage devices, etc.). Some have even cited these specific defenses as preexisting and sufficient mitigations for vulnerabilities in already-deployed voting system such that further remediation is not needed. Unfortunately, this assumption does not hold under scrutiny. This presentation provides a review of publicly available sources from vendors, jurisdictions, and assorted other entities and reveals substantial weaknesses in the design, configuration, and deployment of such defensive devices.
Physical security has long been a core component of voting system defenses through the use of keyed locks and tamper-evident seals/tape/stickers. With procedural protections requiring their use, arbitrary voters are explicitly permitted to physically interact with these systems in a semi-private setting (voting booth) under the assumption that the hardware’s attack surface can be sufficiently scoped to a set of intended, known-safe interactions (i.e. limit/prevent access to I/O interfaces, administrative controls, storage devices, etc.). Some have even cited these specific defenses as preexisting and sufficient mitigations for vulnerabilities in already-deployed voting system such that further remediation is not needed. Unfortunately, this assumption does not hold under scrutiny. This presentation provides a review of publicly available sources from vendors, jurisdictions, and assorted other entities and reveals substantial weaknesses in the design, configuration, and deployment of such defensive devices.
