Nominations for the 42nd Annual News and Documentary Emmy® Awards were announced today by The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) including the HBO documentary "Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America’s Election" from Ish Entertainment.

In advance of the 2020 Presidential election, a new documentary, Kill Chain: The Cyber War on American’s Elections, debuting tonight on HBO, takes a deep dive into the weaknesses of today’s election technology, investigating the startling vulnerabilities in America’s voting systems and the alarming risks they pose to our democracy.

Even as much of America grinds to a halt, coronavirus has yet to derail the date of the 2020 election. Which introduces a perhaps underestimated terror, as explained in one of the more deceptively scary documentaries to drop in recent weeks: the vulnerable voting machine.

Though the November 2020 election has probably never felt farther away, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be thinking about how we’re going to protect its integrity and ensure that this vital aspect of democracy runs smoothly. Then again, considering what we’ve learned about Russian interference in 2016 and beyond, and how routinely voting issues crop up every cycle, what if America is already behind the eight ball on that front as well?

If you don’t want to know how easy it is for a canny individual—or a malicious state actor—to hack into the electronic voting technology used in the U.S., don’t watch Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America’s Elections. In this unnervingly persuasive HBO documentary, directors Simon Ardizzone, Russell Michaels and Sarah Teale marshal cyber-security experts, statisticians and lawmakers to expose cracks in the system that could easily allow hackers to affect voting results.

Filmmaker Sarah Teale joins us to discuss the new documentary, “Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America's Elections.” She is joined by the film’s subject, Harri Hursti, a Finnish computer expert and former hacker turned elections security expert. "Kill Chain" premieres on HBO on Thursday, March 26. This segment is part of our ongoing 'Protect the Vote' series.

What can be done to prevent a repeat of 2016 when, according to US intelligence agencies, the Russians breached the election systems of all 50 states and potentially accessed voter registration and other databases in 21 states? Using paper ballots would be a start, argue many of the experts and politicians from both parties interviewed in the film.

The U.S. election system continues to march toward November as long-known security weaknesses remain unpatched while newer systems added to the mix since 2016 likely have created additional attack paths, despite some states adding paper ballots as a backup measure.

For readers of this space, many of the lessons and events of “Kill Chain” will be familiar, if no less alarming: the VR Systems hack, the myth that voting machines aren’t connected to the internet, the Senate’s inability to enact election security legislation. But the storytelling is still engaging.

A new documentary makes crystal clear how little time remains to protect the 2020 election.