David Hickton is the founding director of the University of Pittsburgh Institute for Cyber Law, Policy, and Security and the former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania. Paul McNulty is the president of Grove City College and the former deputy attorney general of the United States. They are co-chairs of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Pennsylvania’s Election Security. The commission will accept public comment at www.cyber.pitt.edu/​commission.

•

Tuesday was Pennsylvania’s primary election. Not surprisingly, the politics of individual races and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s February decision redrawing our gerrymandered congressional map attracted much of the attention. However, another important election story is playing out across Pennsylvania right now — with potentially enormous consequences for the future of our democratic system.

We should be grateful that the May 15 primaries went off smoothly. But we should not kid ourselves about the risks and threats that remain. The fact we have not yet experienced a crippling cyberattack on Pennsylvania’s elections makes us lucky. It does not make us wise. The time to change that reality is now.

It’s no secret that many voting machine systems in America are ripe for manipulation, and Pennsylvanians should be particularly concerned. Statewide, we use at least 10 different models of voting machines, many of which are more than a decade old and particularly vulnerable to hacking. The non-profit organization Verified Voting estimates that 83 percent of Pennsylvania voters use electronic voting machines without voter-verified paper ballots-the same machines that security experts warn are most hackable.

This should cause great concern. We must also be vigilant in protecting against other cybersecurity threats to our elections. According to the Department of Homeland Security, Russian cyber actors targeted or scanned election-related databases or systems in nearly two dozen states in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, including Pennsylvania. While it does not appear that voting rolls were affected, the concern remains that Russian actions were essentially a trial run for more hard-hitting efforts this year, and in 2020.

That’s why, earlier this month, we launched a non-partisan, independent Blue Ribbon Commission on Pennsylvania’s Election Security. With support from The Heinz Endowments, and collaboration between the University of Pittsburgh’s Institute for Cyber Law, Policy and Security, Carnegie Mellon’s Software Engineering Institute CERT Division, and Verified Voting, we will convene experts and leaders from across the state with a clear goal: to bring about concrete improvements to Pennsylvania’s election security before it’s too late.

We must be clear about the urgency of the task. The midterm election is only six months away, with the 2020 election cycle starting shortly afterward. This is not a time for complacency. We need to capitalize on positive momentum toward real change. Indeed, on April 12, the secretary of state’s office required that all Pennsylvania voting machines offer a verifiable paper trail by the end of 2019, and encouraged counties to do so before the November election. This is a crucial step, and we applaud Gov. Tom Wolf and Acting Secretary of State Robert Torres for this effort.

We must understand that securing our elections is a race against time. Hackers and cyber adversaries learn and adapt quickly, and have no respect for our laws or democratic traditions. Hackers can also cause physical damage, as well as create chaos or confusion among election workers and voters, leading to a damaging loss of faith in election results.

We urge continued exploration of additional federal, state, local and public-private partnership support for investment in the security of our elections. Pennsylvanians and public officials must recognize that election security infrastructure requires regular investments and upgrades. Our elections —and our faith in them —are not free.

We owe it to all Pennsylvanians to ensure their participation in our election counts. As the commission begins its work, we welcome public comment on the commission’s website. With the continued efforts of our hardworking state and local officials, as well as the public, we are confident the Keystone State can lead the country as an example of effective election security — once again leading this American experiment in democracy.

First Published: May 17, 2018, 4:00 a.m.