The two factors that will determine the 2020 election are voter turn-out and foreign hacking of our election system.

This article by Matthew Rosenberg, Nicole Perlroth and David E. Sanger in today’s NY Times (January 10, 2020) reviews the risks that could so confuse the election results in our highly charged politicized nation that public confidence in those results could be the greatest threat to our democracy.

This article is a must read not only for American citizens generally, but for every election campaign and for all states that oversee the elections in their respective domains as the election year moves through primaries and political conventions towards November.

Paper ballots in every state are the surest protection against a corrupted election result, but the holes in the cyber world that Russians, Iranians, Chinese, and others can manipulate in an ever more sophisticated manner presents enormous challenges to our election security and could threaten voter registration rolls and the vote itself.