America’s Elections Could Be Hacked. Go Vote Anyway.

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In the months before the 2016 presidential election, Russian hackers tried to infiltrate voting systems in dozens of states. They succeeded in at least one, gaining access to tens of thousands of voter-registration records in Illinois.

At a hacking convention last summer, an 11-year-old boy broke into a replica of Florida’s state election website and altered the vote totals recorded there. It took him less than 10 minutes.

All along, the nation’s top intelligence and law-enforcement officials have been sounding the alarm, warning that Russia is engaged in a “24-7 365-days-a-year” effort to disrupt the upcoming midterm elections and imploring Congress and the White House to take more decisive action.

President Trump may not believe that the risk is real, but the American people do. An overwhelming majority say they are concerned about election security, and more than 60 percent say the Trump administration should be doing more to protect the vote from foreign interference. In April, the nation’s top voting-machine manufacturer told Senator Ron Wyden, of Oregon, that it had installed remote-access software on election-management systems that it sold from 2000 to 2006. Senator Wyden called it “the worst decision for security short of leaving ballot boxes on a Moscow street corner.”

Numbers like these suggest that whether or not hackers manage to gain access to voting systems, they have already achieved their main goal, which is to sow pervasive doubt over the integrity of American elections. Whoever wins, this lack of confidence is as damaging to the nation’s democracy as it is to its national security. And it drives down turnout at the polls, as voters who are already skeptical of the political process begin to believe not just that their vote won’t count, but that it literally won’t be counted...

What can voters do? For starters, take advantage of early voting if your state offers it. The sooner votes are in, the more time officials have to detect irregularities. “Every time someone votes early, they’re part of the fight against foreign interference,” said David Becker, who runs the Center for Election Innovation and Research.

Most important, don’t stay home because you believe that cyberattacks will rig the results of the election. “It’s true that these systems are vulnerable. It’s also true that you should vote on Election Day,” said Mr. Blaze, the voting-security expert. “The worst outcome would be if people conclude that there’s no point in voting.”