Category Overview

Infrastructure — Election Security Glossary

50 election security terms in the Infrastructure category, with definitions sourced from NIST, CISA, EAC, and 30+ authoritative documents.

Browse all 50 terms in Infrastructure

Ms Isac

Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center.

High consensus2 sources

By ESG Editorial Team · Drawing on CISA, EAC, and 25+ sources on election infrastructure and critical infrastructure designation

Election infrastructure is the underlying set of systems, facilities, and services that elections depend on. It includes the buildings where election offices are housed, the warehouses where voting equipment is stored between elections, the data centers that host voter registration systems, the communications networks that connect precincts to central tabulation, and the power and connectivity that keep all of this running.

Why this category matters for election security is that the integrity of an election depends on the integrity of the infrastructure it runs on. A compromised election management system, a warehouse that has been physically breached, or a power outage on election night are not abstract threats. They are realistic failure modes that election offices must plan for.

Federal designation of election infrastructure as critical infrastructure (in 2017) brought election systems into the same framework as power grids, water systems, and financial networks. That designation brought with it access to threat intelligence, incident response support, and prioritization for federal resources. State and local election offices have used that access to harden their infrastructure.

The terminology in this category covers both the infrastructure itself and the practice of protecting it. The concepts here are concrete. They describe the systems, facilities, and services that election administration depends on.

Key Concepts

Election Infrastructure

The systems, facilities, and services that support election administration, designated as critical infrastructure by the U.S. government in 2017.

Secure Storage

Locked, monitored, and access-controlled storage for ballots, voting equipment, and election records between elections.

Network Security

The protection of election data as it moves through the networks that connect precincts, jurisdictions, and central systems.

How These Terms Relate

These concepts together describe the underlying infrastructure that elections depend on. The terminology here covers both the infrastructure itself and the practice of protecting it. The unifying theme is that infrastructure is foundational. The strongest procedures in the world are not effective if the systems they run on are unreliable or compromised. The election-specific application of that principle is the work of ensuring that the buildings, networks, and systems on which elections run are themselves secure and resilient.