Cybersecurity and Electoral Processes. An Analysis of Block Chain Enabled Biometric Voter System and Risk Control in Kenya’s 2022 Electoral Process and the United States Election System Infrastructure.

Electoral Processes Infrastructure Security and Integrity has been an emerging challenge due to the verifiability disputes that arise in competitive elections. This is despite investments in Secure and electoral technology that meets the Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability (CIA triad) of information security. To ensure electoral infrastructure efficiency, information security and voters data confidentiality, governments have invested in Blockchain modeled technology, Biometric Voter Registration and Authentication as well as secure electronic voting mechanisms. This paper studies the Information Security issues raised in the Data Collection, Results Transmission Servers (RTS), Management in the Kenyan electoral process of 2022 where Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) Technology was used to authenticate the voter registration and a hybrid System used in voting and transmitting results. Comparatively, this paper also investigates the United States electoral voting platforms, and documented attempts to interfere with the elections Cyber Security Infrastructure through Malware Attacks and Spearphishing on State and Local Networks. The demonstrates the shows the cost and benefit of traditional data centers against block chain secured BVR and virtualized platform. To enhance electoral integrity and security, the findings recommend a proposed change in the Information Management policies and protocols in the administration of electoral hardware and software assets as well as unrestricted access for Results Transmission Audit.