Virtual Caucus at Risk After DNC Experts Hacked Conference Call

[bluewater]

The Democratic National Committee has raised substantial cybersecurity concerns over virtual caucusing, potentially dooming the effort just five months before Iowa begins its process of choosing a presidential nominee.

At a closed-door session of the Rules and By-Laws Committee on Thursday, the DNC told the panel that experts convened by the party were able to hack into a conference call among the committee, the Iowa Democratic Party and Nevada Democratic Party, raising concerns about teleconferencing for virtual caucuses, according to three people who were at the meeting.

For the first time the DNC is requiring states that hold caucuses instead of primary elections to offer voters a way to participate without showing up at sites across the state. Iowa and Nevada are building a teleconference system for 2020, and Alaska plans a phone and web-based operation.
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The DNC is particularly sensitive to cybersecurity issues, given the hack into DNC emails in 2016, believed to have be carried out by Russian operatives.

The test and the revelation of hacking enraged party officials in caucus states who say the systems were not fully built and the hack of a general teleconferencing system is not comparable. The state party officials also said they were continuing to address any potential vulnerabilities as they build the system.

Caucus-state officials offered a litany of complaints: That the DNC created the rules about absentee participation without considering how the states should achieve that goal; that the DNC offered little help in devising a virtual system, what state officials called the most significant change in caucus procedure since modern caucuses began in 1972; and were slow to raise concerns about security.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-24/dnc-virtual-caucus-at-risk-after-experts-hacked-conference-call

What's the point of having a caucus instead of a primary again? Just to discourage voting by making the process needlessly involved and time consuming?

And can you even IMAGINE what chaos virtual caucusing by TELECONFERENCING will be like? Running normal teleconferences is bad enough...