How do we keep Georgia's election system safe?

ATLANTA — Georgia is one of the only states in the country to exclusively use touch-screen, electronic voting machines at every polling place.%

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It is those machines that critics say are especially vulnerable to hackers.

After a quick Google search, we found an electronic voting machine that is similar to what will be used at Georgia polling places.

For $99, it was shipped directly to us. We packed it up and hit the road to Princeton University, where we met computer science professor Andrew Appel.

“This particular machine is the most hackable of all,” Appel said. “And it's because you can hack them without even touching them.”

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Appel has warned for more than a decade of the vulnerabilities of touch-screen voting machines and showed us how easy it is.

He hacked and reprogrammed a New Jersey voting machine in under seven minutes.

Appel said that for the machines used in Georgia, he wouldn’t need any lock-picking tools or even seven minutes.

“You don't need to open them up,” he said, explaining that poll workers use a memory card to load the ballots.

Appel said a hacker could put malware on the cards or on the computer at county election offices where they're programmed.

“A college student could do it,” Appel said.

One voting machine that Princeton students hacked now plays Pac-Man. Appel said a vote-stealing program could just as easily have been installed as the game was.

Merle King, who oversees Georgia’s elections computers, said that to prevent hacking, no systems are connected to the internet and protections are in place to keep the memory cards secure.

“The memory card is inserted into the slot, locked into place, closed,” King said. “There are chain of custody requirements on all of the devices.”

Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp also said the vulnerabilities that Appel pointed out don’t concern him.

Georgia is one of only 11 states in the country still using touch-screen voting machines. Kemp said that with 159 counties in the state and thousands of polling places, a hacker's job would be nearly impossible.

“You have to log in to get to where the equipment is. It’s under lock and key,” Kemp said.

Testifying in front of Congress, even Thomas Hicks, who was appointed by President Obama to be head of the Election Assistance Commission, said our elections are secure.

But Appel said malware could have been installed months or years ago and normal diagnostic tests wouldn't catch it.

“How do you know you're not locking the barn door after the horse is gone?” Appel said.

He and Hicks both recommend states move to more secure optional scan paper ballots.

Kemp said paper ballots are a possibility for Georgia in the future, but for now, Georgia will use the machines it has. He said he inherited them, and it’s his job to make sure they’re as secure as possible.

Cox Media Group