What Is Election Hacking, and Can It Change Who Wins?

Americans have relied on computers to tally votes since at least 1964, when two Georgia counties used them to count punch-card ballots in a primary election. Over time, high-tech election systems largely supplanted paper ballots and gear-and-lever machinary, a trend hastened by the contested 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore. (Remember hanging chads?) But ever-greater reliance on digital voter registration, electronic voting and computerized tabulation have created the opportunity, at least, for hackers to sabotage elections, and Americans aren’t the only ones who are fearful.

It’s sometimes used as a catch-all phrase to encompass all sorts of underhanded efforts to subvert elections, including the type of social media disinformation campaign undertaken by Russia to taint elections in the U.S., Europe and Africa. But in its most literal form, election hacking refers to computer breaches that are intended to manipulate voter data, change a vote tally or otherwise discredit tabulated results.