Overview
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is the federal government’s lead civilian agency for protecting the nation’s critical infrastructure from cyber and physical threats. Part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, CISA has treated election infrastructure as critical infrastructure since 2017 and works with state and local election officials to identify vulnerabilities and strengthen the security and resilience of election systems.
The July 2026 CISA Election Report was released to assess continuing security risks affecting election infrastructure and identify measures that could reduce those risks. The report identified persistent software vulnerabilities, certification-driven delays in patching, inconsistent vendor transparency, and weak network security across many state and local election environments. It recommends human-readable paper ballots, post-election manual audits, improved vendor practices, and modernization of certification rules so security updates can be applied more quickly.
New York meets several of these recommendations on paper. Most counties use hand-marked paper ballots, state law requires a voter-verifiable paper record and prohibits wireless connectivity on voting systems, and Election Law § 9-211 mandates a post-election audit with a binding full-count trigger. Formal cyber regulations for county boards are among the more detailed in the country.
Significant structural weaknesses remain. New York’s certification statutes actively impede timely security updates. Several counties still rely on hybrid ballot-marking devices that reduce independent verification. Chain-of-custody rules fall short of the dual-control standards CISA emphasizes. Beyond the technical domain, the state’s legal framework leaves major gaps in voter identification, citizenship verification, and voter-roll integrity. These statutory shortcomings create residual risks the current system is not designed to close.
Politics.StackExchange
Paper Ballots and Ballot-Marking Devices
CISA recommends human-readable paper ballots. The external Risk Mitigation Election Plan (RMEP) calls for shifting away from ballot-marking devices (BMDs) as the default for the general electorate while preserving accessible options.
New York largely uses hand-marked paper ballots scanned by optical tabulators. County practices vary:
Orange County and most upstate counties use Dominion ImageCast systems. Voters mark full paper ballots by hand or on a BMD; the paper is the official record.
New York City, Erie County and other counties use ES&S optical scanners. NYC uses the DS 200 while Erie uses a combination of the DS 200 and DS 300 as it transitions to the newer model. Again, voters mark full paper ballots by hand or on a BMD; with the paper as the official record.
Nassau County is converting to Clear Ballot’s ClearVote system, which uses full-sized paper ballots that voters mark by hand or via an accessible device that prints a complete, human-readable ballot.
Monroe and Suffolk Counties use ES&S ExpressVote XL machines. These devices produce a paper vote summary containing human-readable selections as well as a machine-readable barcode used by the system to tabulate the ballot. Although a paper record exists, reliance on a machine-readable element that voters cannot independently verify creates a verification limitation compared with fully hand-marked paper ballots.
Monroe County, NY
CISA’s 2022 advisory on certain Dominion ImageCast X systems identified related software vulnerabilities. CISA stated it had no evidence the flaws were exploited in any election.
Election Law § 7-202 requires a voter-verifiable permanent paper record and prohibits wireless connectivity. Most of New York operates close to the paper model CISA prefers. The continued certification and deployment of hybrid BMDs that rely on machine-readable barcodes, however, leaves a verification gap that stronger statutory limits would close.
Certification and Patching
CISA identified fragmented certification regimes as a major barrier to timely security updates. The report notes that some systems are “locked down” before Election Day, that these lockdowns are sometimes mandated by state law, and that requirements to use only Election Assistance Commission (EAC)-certified software further delay patches.
New York’s statutory framework is a clear example of this structural problem. Under Election Law Article 7 (§§ 7-201 and 7-202), voting systems must be examined and certified by the State Board of Elections before use; material changes require re-examination and re-approval. 9 NYCRR § 6220.3(3)(vi) states that no system requiring State Board certification shall be updated without express written approval of the State Board.
As a result, known software vulnerabilities can remain unpatched for extended periods because the law prioritizes formal re-certification over rapid remediation. This is not merely bureaucratic delay; it is a statutory design that leaves election systems exposed longer than necessary. CISA’s recommendation to modernize certification rules so critical security updates can be applied without voiding certification status directly confronts this defect in New York law.
Network Security, Chain of Custody, and Operational Controls
CISA found weak segmentation, limited logging, and over-reliance on theoretical air gaps in many local election networks. New York addresses these concerns through 9 NYCRR Part 6220, which requires county boards to maintain cyber-security programs that include asset inventories, monthly patching for non-voting systems, network segmentation, logging, and annual certification. Voting systems themselves have no network connectivity; results move by physical media.
CISA has separately emphasized that robust chain-of-custody procedures are essential. Best practices include bipartisan teams, dual control of ballots and memory media, continuous documentation of every transfer, tamper-evident seals, and clear logging of who handled materials and when.
Documented incidents illustrate the gap between written rules and effective controls. In 2020, ransomware encrypted roughly 200 computers in Chenango County. In 2022, after a major ransomware attack on Suffolk County’s broader network, election officials on Election Night halted wireless transmission and physically transported memory cards, producing a two-hour delay. In November 2025, Nassau County temporarily misplaced 19 memory sticks during a pilot to speed results reporting.
Nassau’s practice of removing both the primary and backup data sticks from voting machines increases the number of physical handling points. New York law does not impose a uniform statewide requirement for dual-custody transport of ballots and memory media. Single-person transport has been observed in some jurisdictions—contrary to the dual-control standards CISA treats as baseline. These practices are permitted under current rules even though they create avoidable points of failure.
Process Adherence and Recent Observations
New York has detailed election laws and regulations. Their effectiveness depends on consistent adherence. When procedures are not followed rigorously, the residual risks created by weaker statutory standards become more acute.
Independent observers associated with SMART Elections have repeatedly documented instances in New York City in which the number of ballots cast exceeded the number of voters who checked in. In one 2021 early-voting location, observers recorded hundreds more ballots than check-ins; similar discrepancies appeared in later elections. Observers have also raised concerns about single-person transport of ballots.
In October 2024, Lulu Friesdat, SMART Elections, and SMART Legislation filed suit against the New York City Board of Elections over irregularities in the June 2024 Democratic Primary in Assembly District 70, alleging more ballots than check-ins, an untracked voting machine left at a site for multiple days, illegal electioneering, and reports of bribery. The case remains pending.
In Rockland County, SMART Legislation filed a separate lawsuit seeking a full hand recount of the 2024 general election results based on statistical anomalies and voter affidavits. The case was dismissed on standing grounds and is on appeal; discovery focused in part on chain of custody of ballots and equipment.
Separately, the New York City Board of Elections referred potential irregularities in a closely contested 2025 Republican City Council primary to prosecutors, including ballots cast in the names of deceased voters and unscanned paper ballots discovered after Election Night. These episodes demonstrate that gaps between formal rules and real-world execution continue to surface.
Audits and Verification
CISA recommends post-election manual audits of paper ballots before certification. New York requires a random audit of 3 percent of voting machines or systems under Election Law § 9-211. The process is bipartisan and open to watchers; defined discrepancy thresholds can trigger expansion and, if necessary, a binding full manual count.
While New York’s system includes a path to a full count, the fixed-percentage starting point leaves residual risk. A routine full independent human verification of paper ballots would more thoroughly address both technical anomalies and process failures. The current statutory threshold is modest relative to the verification strength CISA and independent analysts treat as more robust.
Voter Identification, Citizenship Verification, and Voter Roll Integrity
The CISA report focuses primarily on technical and cyber aspects of election infrastructure. The security of an election system also depends on accurate eligibility determination and reliable voter rolls. New York’s legal framework leaves significant gaps in these areas.
New York does not require voters to present photo identification at the polls for most elections. While registration requires identity documentation, the absence of a consistent, universal voter ID requirement at the point of voting is a deliberate policy choice. It leaves the system more dependent on signature matching and poll-book checks and more exposed to impersonation or error than systems that require photo identification.
Citizenship verification is another statutory gap. Although federal law restricts voting in federal elections to U.S. citizens, New York’s registration and list-maintenance processes do not require systematic, proactive verification of citizenship status against reliable databases.
Project CIVICA’s August 2026 report, Open Doors: Unauthorized Entry of Non-Citizens onto New York’s Voter Rolls, identified approximately 10,680 voter records carrying non-citizen indicators across 14 counties, including 88 unique records containing voting history. The 14 counties examined represent only about 10 percent of New York’s population and do not include New York City or the state’s largest suburban counties. The full report, methodology, and county-level findings are available at ProjectCIVICA.org.
Voter-roll accuracy remains a significant challenge. New York’s rolls contain substantial numbers of duplicate registrations, outdated records, and other anomalies. List-maintenance practices have drawn scrutiny for opacity. Current law does not mandate the transparent, rigorous cross-checking against death records, change-of-address data, and citizenship indicators needed to maintain high-confidence rolls.
These concerns are reflected in ongoing litigation. In September 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice sued the New York State Board of Elections seeking the full, unredacted statewide voter registration list (NYSVoter) to examine list-maintenance practices, including potential non-citizens, duplicates, and deceased voters. New York declined to produce the complete data. The federal district court dismissed the case in July 2026; the Justice Department has appealed. The dispute underscores continued disagreement over the transparency and accuracy of New York’s voter rolls.
These eligibility and roll-integrity weaknesses interact with the technical and process vulnerabilities identified by CISA. A system with strong paper records and air-gapped machines can still be compromised if ineligible voters are able to cast ballots or if the underlying registration data is unreliable. New York’s current statutes do not adequately close these risks.
Election Technology Security, U.S. Election Assistance Commission
Practical Steps for Counties and the State
Counties cannot change statewide certification rules or force faster vendor patches. They can still reduce remaining weaknesses.
Counties with heavier hybrid BMD use can shift the default for the general electorate to pre-printed hand-marked paper ballots where the certified system allows, limit BMDs primarily to accessibility needs, and strengthen voter instructions on verifying the full paper record.
Counties can tighten dual-control tracking of memory sticks and results media, require two-person custody for all ballot and media transport, maintain continuous chain-of-custody logs, and document every anomaly and corrective action. They can also fully implement the asset-inventory, segmentation, logging, and patching requirements in 9 NYCRR Part 6220 for non-voting systems.
At the state level, meaningful improvement requires statutory change. New York should:
Modernize certification rules to allow timely security updates without voiding certification
Expand post-election manual audits beyond the current modest threshold
Impose uniform dual-custody chain-of-custody requirements statewide
Enact consistent photo voter identification with reasonable accommodations
Mandate systematic citizenship verification
Require transparent, rigorous voter-roll maintenance that prioritizes accuracy
Without these legal reforms, operational improvements at the county level will remain constrained by weaker statewide standards.
Overall Assessment
New York meets several of CISA’s core recommendations on paper. Most counties use systems that produce human-readable paper ballots, and the state mandates post-election audits with a binding full-count trigger.
At the same time, New York’s legal framework contains clear structural deficiencies relative to the risks CISA identified. Certification statutes actively delay security updates. Hybrid BMDs that reduce independent verification remain permitted. Chain-of-custody rules do not consistently require dual-control standards. Process adherence is uneven, as recent observational findings and legal challenges illustrate. Beyond the technical domain, the absence of universal photo voter identification, systematic citizenship verification, and rigorous voter-roll maintenance leaves significant eligibility and list-integrity gaps that current law does not close.
These are not merely implementation shortfalls. Several of New York’s core election statutes are insufficiently rigorous relative to the threats and process risks CISA documented. Strengthening the legal framework—alongside operational improvements—is necessary if the residual vulnerabilities are to be reduced in a durable way.
Sources
CISA 2022 Advisory – Dominion ImageCast X: https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/ics-advisories/icsa-22-154-01
Risk Mitigation Election Plan (July 22, 2026): https://tinapeters.us/documents/news-media/2026/07/Risk-Mitigation-Election-Plan-2026.pdf
Cover Letter to CISA (July 24, 2026): https://tinapeters.us/documents/news-media/2026/07/CISA-Cover-Letter-Reynolds-Peters-Parikh-Huff-2026-07-24.pdf
New York Election Law § 7-202: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/ELN/7-202
Nassau County memory sticks (Newsday, Nov. 2025): https://www.newsday.com/long-island/politics/elections/nassau-election-results-delays-memory-sticks-a65yhub6
Chenango County ransomware (AP News, Oct. 2020): https://apnews.com/article/technology-new-york-norwich-elections-voting-2020-1f39aa833be880de422ee0e651b18ba4
Suffolk County Election Night 2022 (Newsday): https://www.newsday.com/long-island/politics/elections/suffolk-county-board-of-elections-election-night-delays-computers-okprnxv4
CISA Chain of Custody resources: See CISA Insights: Chain of Custody and Critical Infrastructure Systems and related EAC best-practice guidance.
Project CIVICA, Open Doors: Unauthorized Entry of Non-Citizens onto New York’s Voter Rolls (August 2026), ProjectCIVICA.org
Note: The primary July 2026 CISA Election Report was reviewed from the original document provided for this analysis. References to SMART Elections observations and related litigation, as well as the federal voter-list case, are based on publicly available court filings and contemporaneous reporting. Claims regarding voter-roll accuracy and non-citizen registrations reflect ongoing research and documented findings; specific county-level data should be verified against official records.
What an excellent job Brian!