U-M election security expert discusses hopes and frustrations, working in election security at a time of intense polarization and election lies

EXPERT Q&A

The work of J. Alex Halderman, a professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Michigan, has made the U.S. election system more secure—largely by uncovering vulnerabilities in equipment like voting machines and ballot scanners, and by advocating for best practices and technological advances.

Along the way, he has run up against the limitations of our elections systems and even resistance from technology vendors and election officials. Ironically, his work has also been used to prop up false theories about fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

Here are some of his thoughts on the pursuit of science that’s so deeply tied to the volatile world of politics.

In some cases, the vulnerabilities you’ve uncovered have persisted for years without being addressed. Why does that happen?

Security issues are a fact of life for any technology company, and responsible companies today plan for them and have procedures for rolling out fixes effectively and efficiently. That kind of vulnerability lifecycle management is still underdeveloped in the elections field.

One reason for that gap is that the election technology sector is 15 to 20 years behind the leading tech sectors in terms of security. It’s a small and relatively stagnant market, so it’s just not an exciting place to be working as a technologist.

In addition, the election systems management infrastructure in many states is just really poor. They don’t have the investment they need to do things like install software updates on a timely basis.

We’ve all seen the tenor of U.S. politics become more heated, particularly in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election. Has that affected your work, or the way you talk about your work?

I don’t think it’s changed how I work, but it’s made communicating about my work more challenging. It’s more important than ever to be precise and to think about how things might be misconstrued and make sure that what I write is heading off misconceptions.

But there’s not much that I can do to change what people are going to say about the science. It’s my job to be figuring out what’s true and to be communicating that to the public accurately. Of course, it hurts, and it’s personally offensive when my work is the convenient vehicle for telling lies. But the people who want to tell lies about the last election are going to tell lies with or without my work.

I think I would do a much bigger disservice to the public and the truth if I were to discover problems and not talk about them. It’s important for people to know that these risks exist, because otherwise we’re going to continue to underinvest in our election administration and infrastructure. Our state and local officials need further support from the public, and the way you’re going to get that is by letting the public know why they need that support.

As you mentioned, this intersection of science and politics can be an exceptionally difficult place to work. Why do you keep at it?

I guess it’s in part because I’m an eternal optimist. I really think that election security is a problem that we’re going to be able to make great progress on through persistence and the application of science.

I like to compare American elections to the commercial aviation system. Air travel today carries so much less risk than it did just a few decades ago. And that’s because we’ve engineered a complex system for safety and security that has been incredibly successful.

Elections are vastly simpler than aviation, we just don’t have an adequate level of engineering resources going into them. If that changed, then I think election security, like aviation safety, could be one of this country’s proudest success stories.

Halderman is the Bredt Family Professor of Engineering.