>> we are joined by train jim condos, current president of the national association of secretaries of state. secretary condos come appreciate on theng with us today same day that your op-ed on election security is running on the "usa today" opinion page. you began by piece looking back on the day the department of homeland security notified secretary of state that 21 state election systems has been attacked a russian cyberagents back in 2016. what do you think the lesson was from those attacks? >> well, it's important to remember there were 21 states that were attacked and it was only once date that was actually breached according to the department of homeland securityo that meant that 20 states did their job and defended well again those

attacks. if you look at where we are today in 2018, two years later, we are far better than we were in 2016, but i will say in 2016 i believe overall. >> we're talking the secretary of state from around the country today during the next two hours of the "washington journal." we are asking him about elections. he appeared in your mind, when our voting machines most vulnerable? is it right now, weeks or months before an election. is it on the election day when people are voting for is that sometime after votes are cast, but before there reported out. >> so, that is an interesting question the way you posed it. i would say that unless you're talking about technology. the are usually just scanners and calculate those results from the actual ballot.

danger.e not in i think it's been poorly portrayed in the media and to say that there is theth potenti. when you think about it, there is a strict chain of command for the memory cards. memory cards are not sent to the town clerks. here in vermont, we don't have county governments come as we from the state level down to the town level. the ones that actually manage our elections. they have a strict chain of command with regards to the memoryth card, which they don't receive until about two to three weeks before the election. they do itct before. in many cases they are transferred their check on the morning up and they checked again after they shut down. but i think it is important to

remember that we are really creating a fine balancing act between cybersecurity and opening up our elections process to the general public. i think it's important also to remember that we are constantly focused especially since 2016 on cybersecurity. >> how much more so with the federal government involved in this process is 2016? what would've changed on that level in your relationship or in a state the federal level. >> so let me back up to 2016 and start from there. i think when we first got the phone call, the secretaries of state were called her a conference call with secretary of big johnson. we were far and it an attack that occurred and we are perhaps as the federal government was

considering creating a critical infrastructure designation for elections. we didn't know what that meant. i think many red states and blue states, many of the states were opposed to that designation because we had no idea if it was the federal stakeholder of our elections process. to say was a rocky road in the beginning as far as communications i think even dhs would agree to that. what has happened since then, the critical iced infrastructure was designated in january of 17. we actually didn't find out what resources and what that meant to last until june or july of 17. we have since set up a coordinating council of which i and others are members of. we have a lot of resources of the department of homeland security is providing to us. things like penetration test,

vulnerability assessments, and cyberscams, here in vermont we have to do a weekly hiking scan of our system through the dhs currently. the communication level just last summer has increased and when i say last summer, summer of 17 has increased s tremendously. we now have an election dashboard with dhs and the fbi. we look at real-time information as to any threats that might be on the horizon. we m are caught to focus on howe can do this. i can go into detail and ask about all the different things we've got in place. >> a lot of the issue you talk about, a lot of the new aspects funded through some $380 million in federal funding that is gone now through help america vote act funds. vermont got about $3 million

worth of those funds. how did you choose to use them? >> first, let's talk about the 380 million. i was working with senator leahy to get the money released. that was left over hanging chad money from 2002 stimulus the remaining portion of the three-point line alien dollars where it ended out back in 2002. so this is money that we knew had heard he approved. they needed to be appropriated. many of theee secretaries were pushing the congressional delegation to try topul move ous quickly as possible. obviously most of us didn't receive our money until june and we have been focused on things we can do. for instance, many states including my own have put in education for anyone that accesses our system. we also have added a new acceptable voting system.

we've done a penetration test in which we came out with a very good report that said we were immature welcome system. so those are things we've been doing with it and we hope to use some of that money going forward to purchase new tabulators in the future. probably for 2020 or 2022. >> we mentioned her work as association of secretaries of state. do you know at this point how many different voting systems are in use across all 50 states and all the jurisdictions? >> no, because it all varies. t:here in vermont we have status that has to be the same system throughout the state. other states leave it up to the jurisdiction whether it's county or local to determine what they have. it theories. a lot of different equipment out there. i believe that every state, every locality, every county are

working apart and make sure the systems are in good shape. you know, as a best practice and from my standpoint, vermont speaking, i would say that i consider best practices to be a voter marked ballot in a postelection audit, you know, voter registration databases are backed up on a daily basis so that if what were to happen we could always go back 24 hours and reset our database and lose 24 hours worth of data. and then i think the ultimate resilience we have is here in vermont we have same-day voter registration so nobody coming to the polls will be denied the right cast a ballot. >> a lot of different machines available, but how many companies are making voting machines. are a few big companies that lobbied states to buy their voting machines or is there a lot of choice across the

country? >> i don't know that i would call it lobbying. wewe all work through different procurement practices throughout the country. here in vermont we will generally do about eight to 12 months worth of business analysis and the looking under business requirements. it may require to go back to the legislature to make the change tota statue. i can't speak for other states as far as that goes, but we do have different procurement systems. it's not like walking into best buy and say and i want to hundred of those machines. you have to actually go through a very -- a very strong process to determine what the requirementsts are, what the analysis is, either process improvement that are needed. other statute changes needed? it's just a con in battle to do this the correct way. the rfpal we get dark -- we look

at those and determine we've reviewed them and match them up against each other to see which looks to be the best fit based on our rs d. and then we make a choice. so to say that there's lobbying, i don't think thatng happens. every company that has the unit out there except theirs is the best. >> is the federal government ever considered coming up with a standard voting machine? >> i'm not aware of it. i know that the election assistance commission, the eac at the federal level does certifications. we usually follow these recommendations and those are coming you know, for instance in our state and vermont one of the requirements that i have is that any tabulator that we pick must be either eac certified or certified by another state such

as connecticut reviewed at the university of connecticut cybersecurity unit. >> secretary condos, before we lose you, we want to talk about early voting. what are the rules in your state? >> in vermont back in 2009 when you, or the overseas military vote act passed, to receive their ballots up to 45 days ahead of time. vermont decided our military and overseas, it was good enough for all vermonters. we started 45 days ahead. this day was december 21st and we go right up until the day before the election and then we have same-day voter registration. >> what do vermonters need to prevent to vote in vermont? >> you just proclaim, just say

their name when they show up at the polls. there was no voter i.d. requirements of the state of vermont. you know, most of our jurisdictions are less than 4000 people and most of the clerks will tell you they know pretty much everybody in town. >> in terms of voter fraud, do you think that the widespread problem? >> it's not a widespread problem. there aret individual instant s a voter fraud, but it is not a widespread problem. >> for individual and that is, what a photo i.d. be helpful in doing that. have you ever considered making more stringent voter i.d. laws? >> first ofst all, voting is the right by the constitution and by the vermont constitution. we need to be careful about putting instructions in place of that, in front of that ability to cast the ballot. i believe the true voterud