Online attackers may be able to purchase – for as little as a few thousand dollars – enough personal information to potentially alter voter registration information in as many as 35 states and the District of Columbia, according to a new Harvard study.
One tactic, researchers said, would be to simply change voters’ addresses, making it appear – to poll workers at least – as though they were voting at the wrong location. Those voters might be forced to cast provisional ballots, which in many circumstances are not counted. The study is described in a September 6 paper published in the Journal of Technology Science.