Case Study: Missouri Secretary of State achieves secure, always-available election websites with Cloudflare

Missouri Secretary of State - Customer Case Study

The Missouri Secretary of State’s Office, which runs the Missouri Centralized Voter Registration (MCVR) system used by 116 local election authorities, faced the dual challenge of processing over 318,000 online voter registration transactions in 2020 while defending election websites against DDoS and other real-time threats. With election-night traffic spikes and previously limited or delayed access to security controls, the SOS needed better visibility, faster response, and coordinated threat sharing with federal and state partners.

To meet that need the SOS joined the Athenian Project and deployed Cloudflare Enterprise services—centralizing defenses with a Web Application Firewall, extensive caching, and a single management console. The team could deploy custom WAF rules in seconds, drastically reduce server load through caching, and absorb roughly four times normal traffic during the election, giving staff immediate control, greater resilience, and increased confidence in protecting authoritative election information.

Missouri Secretary of State

Stacy Mahaney

Chief Information Officer