A look at Election Cyber Surge, which aims to bolster US election cybersecurity by matching local election officials with cybersecurity experts who want to help
Kevin Collier / NBC News : Tweets: @uuallan , @kevincollier , @asis_intl , @rhifionn , and @natlvoterregday Tweets: @uuallan : I volunteered to help. I was going to sign up to poll work, but I figure I can provide more value on this area. The point is we all know this election is shaping up to be a shitshow. Don't just complain, do something to make it better. https://twitter.com/... Kevin Collier / @kevincollier : New: With less than 100 days to go, a new program aims to play matchmaker between volunteer cybersecurity experts and underfunded local election officials who need the help https://www.nbcnews.com/... @asis_intl : “Volunteer hacker army boosts U.S. election cybersecurity: Networks remain ‘absolutely ripe for a disruptive or destructive attack by a capable adversary,’ one cybersecurity official said.” https://www.nbcnews.com/... @NBCNews #security Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman / @rhifionn : Excerpt: ... a University of Chicago initiative called the Election Cyber Surge aims to act as matchmaker between local election officials who may not have access to cybersecurity services and qualified experts who want to help. https://www.nbcnews.com/... #Election2020 @natlvoterregday : Are you a tech whiz with an interest in protecting our democracy from all cyber enemies foreign and domestic? If so, your local election clerk may have an interest in deputizing you for Election Day 2020. https://www.nbcnews.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
The 2020 election security story has been one of patchwork: reporting since 2018 documented severe vulnerabilities across every level of the US election system, and by mid-2020 analysts concluded that federal responses to Russian interference remained inadequate. With under 100 days to Election Day, the University of Chicago's Election Cyber Surge adds another layer — a matchmaking service pairing volunteer security experts with chronically underfunded local election offices.
It matters because local jurisdictions are the weakest link the bigger efforts can't reach: states have already been pulling in National Guard cybersecurity units for short-staffed rural areas, and CISA is running its own nationwide operation toward a 24/7 Election Day war room. Election Cyber Surge fills the gap between those institutional resources and the small offices that need hands-on help now.
First-order effects
- Local election officials who couldn't otherwise afford security staff gain direct access to volunteer expertise — phishing defense, patching, and incident triage they'd have gone without.
- Security professionals who might otherwise have signed up as poll workers redirect their labor to higher-leverage remote work, as early volunteers in the program describe doing.
Second-order effects
- The volunteer pipeline competes for the same talent pool that states are tapping when they deploy National Guard cybersecurity units to small jurisdictions, pushing officials to choose between military and civilian help.
- CISA's centralized war-room operation gains a distributed civilian adjunct at the local level, extending its reach into offices too small or too late-cycle to receive direct federal support.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds past 2020, election administration may settle into a permanent three-tier staffing model — federal coordination, state military assets, and a civic volunteer corps — because local budgets alone cannot fund the security burden.
- A standing volunteer infrastructure also creates an accountability question: election integrity increasingly depends on ad hoc labor whose training, vetting, and continuity no single agency owns.
The trend: US election security is being assembled bottom-up — volunteer corps like Election Cyber Surge joining National Guard detachments and CISA operations to compensate for persistently underfunded local election offices.