FBI Director: Our Electronic Voting System Is Such A Complete Mess, It Would Be Difficult To Hack

There's been plenty of talking going around this election cycle about the terrible security problems with our current voting technology -- along with some conspiracy-theory level talk of foreign agents looking to "hack" the election. We haven't been very impressed with officials telling us all to calm down and it's difficult to see how FBI director James Comey did himself any favors by basically arguing that the voting system is secure... mainly because of what a complete and utter mess it is. The larger point he's making is somewhat valid, if clunky, in the fact that each state runs their own voting, so it's not like hackers can get into one central system and wreak havoc. The different systems definitely make it harder. But arguing that this is a sign of good security seems kind of ridiculous:

"The beauty of the American voting system is that it is dispersed among the 50 states, and it is clunky as heck,'' said Mr. Comey. "A lot of people have found that challenging over the years, but the beauty of that is it's not exactly a swift part of the internet of things, and so it is hard for an actor to reach our voting process.''

Yeah, that's basically security through obscurity... at scale. Not exactly very reassuring, even if the underlying point may be true.

Wouldn't it be better if we just made sure the systems were actually secure (i.e., not computerized and connected to the internet) rather than just "clunky"?

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