Fueled by monetary rewards and curiosity, hackers have played a significant role in helping companies discover and fix security vulnerabilities in a variety of technology and software applications.

But one year out from the 2020 presidential election, can they do more to help secure voting systems? Technology researchers hope so.

The Information Technology-Information Sharing and Analysis Center (IT-ISAC) is evaluating the feasibility of creating a coordinated vulnerability disclosure (CVD) program that could alert voting system companies about weaknesses.

The first step in establishing a CVD program requires voting vendors to have a system in place for receiving information about discovered vulnerabilities and acting on that information—procedures several vendors have already begun to implement, said Scott Algeier, the executive director of IT-ISAC, a non-profit that serves as a clearinghouse for information on cyber threats to critical infrastructure.