Cyber researchers found a key vulnerability in Georgia’s new online portal that appeared to let anyone submit a voter cancellation for any state resident, forcing state officials to fix the issue.
The situation in Georgia, a prized battleground state, added to a rocky rollout of the portal, which is supposed to help the state clear its voter rolls when someone moves out of state or dies.
Upon its July 29 debut, the portal allowed some users to see the last four digits of their Social Security number and the full driver’s license number of other people.
That was quickly fixed, yet a cybersecurity researcher named Jason Parker alerted ProPublica and Atlanta News First about a new flaw over the weekend. The bug seemed to let users bypass a part of the portal that required users to submit a driver’s license number to support the cancellation request.
Some users tried to cancel the voter registrations for Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Republican, through the new portal. They were unsuccessful.
Parker, who uses they/them pronouns, showed how to enter a person’s name, date of birth and county of residence — easily discoverable information about many people — on an initial screening page before right-clicking to show the browser’s HTML code.
Parker deleted code lines about the driver’s license number and hit submit, prompting a pop-up window that said: “Your cancellation request has been successfully submitted,” and that county election workers would process the request.
Parker told ProPublica it was a “terrible vulnerability to leave open.”
ProPublica and Atlanta News First both alerted the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office to the problem and held off on publication until it was fixed.
“Incomplete paper and online applications will not be accepted,” said Blake Evans, Georgia’s elections director. “We have updated the process to include an error message, letting the individual know their submission is incomplete and will not be processed.”
The glitches are fueling the nationwide debate over election security with less than three months until Election Day.
Former President Donald Trump, the GOP presidential nominee, and Republicans have made election security a signature issue, saying vulnerabilities at the ballot box would allow illegal immigrants or shady liberal forces to steal elections. In 2020, Mr. Trump lost the state to President Biden by just over 11,000 votes, and made claims of vote fraud that were not validated.
Democrats generally say elections have a solid track record of security and claims of fraud are overblown and used as a smokescreen to explain GOP losses.
The issue is particularly poignant in Georgia. Mr. Trump famously pressured Mr. Raffensperger by phone to dig up enough votes to overturn what the former president called a rigged 2020 electoral victory for Mr. Biden in the state.
A grand jury last year indicted Mr. Trump and his associates on racketeering charges over their post-election maneuvers. The case is in limbo as an appeals court decides whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis had an impermissible conflict through a romantic relationship with an investigator on the case.
Yet Mr. Trump continues to attack Mr. Raffensperger, telling an Atlanta crowd on Saturday he is “doing everything possible to make 2024 difficult for Republicans to win.”
Mr. Trump fumed over 2020 election changes that allowed for greater use of in-mail or early voting and drop boxes in some states. His claims of voter fraud lasted long after networks declared the race for Mr. Biden, and culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Mr. Trump faces a federal indictment over his post-election actions. That case is in limbo, too, after the Supreme Court ruled presidents enjoy criminal immunity from prosecution for “official acts.”
The Senate in 2021 acquitted Mr. Trump after an impeachment over his post-election actions.
Mr. Trump, under pressure from the GOP, has softened his stance on early voting and is urging Republicans to submit their ballots whenever they can to defeat Vice President Kamala Harris in November.
“Absentee voting, early voting and Election Day voting are all good options,” he wrote on Truth Social earlier this year, using all caps for emphasis.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.