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Understanding 9/11tv Election Security CSPAN February 13, 2018 5:30am-6:59am EST
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services subcommittee hearing on the defense department's role in protecting u.s. elections from foreign influence. >> c-span pass history series landmark cases returns this month with a look at 12 new supreme court cases area to historians and experts join us to discuss the constitutional issues and personal stories behind significant supreme court decisions. beginning monday, february 26th, live at 9 p.m. eastern, and to help you follow all 12 cases we have a companion guide written by supreme court journalist tony morrow. landmark cases, volume 2. the book cost $8.95 plus shipping and handling. to get your copy go to c-span.org/landmarkcases. >> former homeland security secretary jeh johnson took part in an event on the security and vulnerabilities of u.s. election infrastructure.
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the center for american progress looked at the levels of progress states have made since 2016 to protect their systems from foreign interference. this runs one hour 25 minutes. >> good afternoon everyone. i am president of the center for american progress and i am thrilled to have you all here for one of the most important discussions we are going to have this year which is on voting integrity. on which we all rely for democracy. the topic of today's address is
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about the trust we have in our voting system which is central and fundamental to everything we rely on for government. our system of free and fair elections is under assault from hostile nations. i know that sounds extreme but it is true. statementspelling from leaders on both sides of the aisle that russia attempted to interfere with our 2016 elections, president trump continues to dismiss such evidence as fake news. this disturbing reality underscores that now more than ever before protecting america's election security is a matter of national security. our states stand on the front lines. the 2018 midterms are only nine months away. wants to safeguard our democracy from foreign thecks, we must understand
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steps every state must take to strengthen their election infrastructure. release a is proud to copperheads of report that details the current state of election security in all 50 states along with the district of columbia. our report covers seven categories of best practices including paper ballots, minimum cyber security standards for voter registration systems and postelection audits. it concludes that while many states have taken significant strides, every state remains vulnerable. no state received an a grade b -- 11 states earned a .7 states received a d or f we have a lot of work to do to protect democracy. our report acknowledges the hard work of state and local
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restraints inpite funding personnel and technology. we hope this report will fuel the conversation around a vital best vital importance of election security and stir lawmakers to provide local leaders with the resources they need. fact,er this simple congress could supply the funding needed to modernize america's outdated voting machines, conduct detailed threat assessments and enact security audits for roughly half the cost of a single b-2 bomber. i hope leaders from both parties will embrace the urgency of making great investments in our election infrastructure. states need help now. you can download the full irsion from cap swept a and wanted to say a special shout out to the people to knowledge the authors of this report, working on this for many months. danielle route, liz kennedy,
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jerry personal, for their outstanding work you did we are thrilled to welcome a distinguished lineup of guests to amplify and discuss these findings. i'm thrilled that i will be sitting down with jeh johnson, former secretary of security. and why this issue should be at the forefront of all of our
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conversations around democracy. [applause] klobuchar: thanks to center for american progress but not only taking up this issue but a lot of cutting edge issues including what we will be dealing with when i get back to the hill, which is dreamers and the hope that we can stop it hundred thousand people from being deported, pretty good goal. have just for the work you done on elections. it's good to see secretary johnson. i begin my day at the barack obama and michelle obama portrait unveiling. i did not really want to leave. really an amazing thing and you should check out the portrait and they did a beautiful job. i see secretary johnson, who i enjoyed working with and admired. i read an interview from last week where on this topic he said 2016 was a wake-up call and that
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"the feds and the states need to do something for our democracy is attacked again." him for sayingnk and 15 seconds what it will take a u.s. senator to 15 minutes. we are known as the good government state. we are very proud of our election laws. on your cap survey thatneera referenced. minnesota is kind of humble we like to be above average. part of that is we have always and good election laws have been cutting edge in a lot of ways. we have the highest voter turnout in the country in 2016. 81% of registered voters turned out. voting.ve in
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hope and why i did this bill with senator langford is to make sure that we understand this is not a democratic or republican issue. this is about america. inn we learn what happened 2016, that is un-american. un-american to have this russian interference which is a nice term for criminal activity, in our elections, since we know the right to free and fair elections is the very heart of our freedoms in america. , i wantyou leave today you to remember that simple concept of marco rubio himself it hit one candidate in
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the next time you will hit the other one. think of this in that lens. 266. that is the number of days left before the 2018 election. 256 days to go. a little more than nine months and we cannot ensure americans that our elections ushered care. -- are secure. it is on us. 2016.w what happened in intelligence reports made clear that russia used covert cyberattacks, harmful propaganda to try to play in our elections and they did. six month later on june 21, the department of homeland security confirmed russia launched cyberattacks against at least 21 state elections. we learned that the russians angeted officials and american voting software company and voting systems in illinois were hacked and information on thousands of voters were exposed to the russians.
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our national security officials have sounded the alarm and they are saying this is just the beginning. it's not just former obama administration officials that are saying this. russialerson said that is already trying to influence the u.s. midterm elections. cia director mike pompeo said he has every expectation that russia will target the u.s. midterm elections. george w. bush said the russian government has made a project of turning americans against each other and that gets to the device of this of so many of the post you saw on social media. former director of national intelligence james clapper said i believe russia is now emboldened to continue such activities in the future book here and around the world and to do so even more intensely. i could go on but i think we
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understand. that current security officials feel this is going to happen. just 36 days from now, illinois, the state the russians successfully hacked into in 2016 , will hold a primary for the midterm elections. why haven't we acted? i don't believe there's an excuse. there's problems in congress, people at opposite corners of the boxing ring, but in fact there does not seem to be the will and the will has to come from the peoples of the people are the ones that vote in the elections. here are six solutions. almost all of them have bipartisan support. states need support to protect their election systems. we have secretary or election official heads here from .irginia
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there are systems that are at least 10 years old. the russians know this. 10 years ago we were using flip phones. there are some senators and still do that. now we have smartphones that we update regularly to keep pace with the emerging technology. so we need to be as sophisticated as the perpetrators and foreign pow ers trying to break into our systems. that is what is pointed out in the report that was just issued by the center for american progress. that is also why senator line for it and i along with senator kamala harris and lindsey graham introduced this bill, the secure elections act that will help bring these resources. it calls for $386 million for election security .
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neera used the figure with the bomber. this amount of money is just 3% of the cost of one single aircraft carrier. that themakes clear federal homeland security and officials can share secure information with state election officials. that was thrown up in the face of state election officials when --y were not able to access we found out we were in minnesota we had no idea we were. it treats the process and allows that to happen. the final thing is that it creates requirements for best practices for auditing. you have a number of states that don't even have a backup paper ballots so you have no way to check if there is a hack. there's no reason it could not be done in the omnibus that's coming up in the next few weeks. we need reliable backup measures in place when something goes
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wrong. each state administers its own elections. our decentralized election p process is a strength and weakness. it is harder to hack into them, however it also makes it so you might have one that is weak because it does not have enough money to protect it. we saw this in 2016, russian hackers attempted to breach the systems of many states but were only successful in one. there are also a weakness in different state has procedures for voting and many do not have reliable post election auditing procedures in place. as you know this means you're are not able to check when something goes wrong. i think there's less than a dozen states or something like that that don't have the backup paper ballots. we have to make sure our elections are free from foreign influence campaigns.
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russia did not just try to hack into our election system, they also launched an extended information war designed to divide our country and destroy americans confidence in our political system. these are the fake ads, the paid ads that we've found some were paid for in rubles, some were not paid for. i remember at the hearing we had in judiciary the dramatic moment where we had the picture of an african-american woman who was a text and the text was saying you can vote for hillary clinton by simply texting this number and he did not have to go to the polls. that is criminal but those ads were showing up on people's social media feeds. one example of this i use at home, because sometimes these political at some partisan to people. i heard this firsthand at the munich security conference with senator mccain and we were in a room with norwegian prime
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minister and she told the story angry russia was getting at norway over the last few years because they've been putting funding into their military at a higher pace. russia started running fake news stories on russian tv about norway and one of the things that kept emphasizing was that norway's economy had completely tanked and that they had no agriculture and did not have fruits or vegetables to give to the primele and minister of norway told us the story that all of these well-meaning russians who watch this on tv who at friends and relatives in norway came over to visit them with bags and bags of cucumbers and apples and fruit because they believed the story, that there were no fruits and vegetables in norway. that's example -- that is an example of how convincing those acts can be. you can imagine how convincing they are in a political context. in the last election in 2016, $1.4 billion was spent on social media and they expect that to
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maybe triple, to go into the range of $4 billion. we have no idea. it is a place where the wild west governs. there are no requirements for disclaimers and no requirements for disclosures. that is why i introduced, and was so pleased senator mccain cosponsored it, the honest ads act. it takes the rules that are in , for radio, and tv and puts them in place for social media ads. we know this won't solve everything because this is about paid ads. there's absolutely no excuse that we would not have the same rules apply when all this money .s migrating to social media the way this would work now is people can put up campaign ads and some of the social media safer candidate ads we
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require a disclaimer and we require that you keep it on file . they are not doing it for issue ads. under federal law issues of national legislative importance are the things you see on tv all the time about any issue for congress. whether it energy, civil liberties, those ads you see the tv station the newspaper or the radio look at the ad make sure there's a disclaimer and disclose them for people to see. we don't do that on social media and one of the funniest answers i got at a hearing is when one of the executives social media company said they could not do it because they could not figure out what those ads were. in deep riveron falls minnesota can figure it out. they can figure out what our ads of national legislative importance. this is not just about foreign powers. it's about our democracy. all the dirty ads are going to
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migrate to social media and flip up on your page. there's not going to be any tracking of them. we have to change this as well. you will have this unlimited money and you will have propaganda coming in. as someone who runs for office and who ran with very little money i like to joke when i -- what ifor money first ran for office or did not know how to raise money because my previous office you could only take $100 for county attorney in minnesota in the off years and 500 in the election year from any person. so suddenly i'm running for u.s. senate with no money myself and that is why i feel so passionate about trying to even the playing field for democracy. i did set an all-time senate record back then. i gave up trying to call
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nationally and i called everyone i knew in my life and i raised $17,000 from ex boyfriends. that is a true story. as has been pointed out it's not an expanding base. the person that pointed that out was my husband. i really care about this idea of an even playing field and when you have a foreign country trying to come in and influence races and for candidates that have no money and are relying on the fact that we have rules in place, if you don't have those rules in place on social media market you don't have a chance. we must send russia a message that this behavior is unacceptable. this means getting those sanctions congress passed, 98 votes out of the senate, that those sanctions should be taken seriously and that the administration should put them in place. that has not happened. i spent last new year's eve, the
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year before last on new year's eve 3016 right after donald trump have gotten elected john mccain and lindsey graham, in the baltic countries. we were in ukraine on new year's eve and there we were with resident -- with the president .t the front lines i want you to picture me with mccain and graham on new year's eve at midnight, which one do you kiss? to see these families where they've lost 10,000 peoples in ukraine fighting for their own freedom, for them to have america stand with them was everything. seesis why when russia america standing with these countries it means something. they have tried this before. they have gone into these countries when estonia tried to move a statue from a public square into the cemetery, it was of russian soldier. the russians retaliated by
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shutting off their internet. or when one of the countries invited members of the ukrainian parliament from crimea away i'll to their celebration of independence, when they invited them they got hacked into. members of the parliament in with -- in lithuania. thisur country to just let go and not take action when we have been hacked into, when we have had russia tried to influence our election, sends the opposite message and that is why the senate voted 98-2 for those sanctions. this administration has refused to implement them and it makes no sense to me because when we do that we are empowering russia and announcing to the world that there are no consequences to foreign governments to interfere in american elections. finally, we must understand the full extent of russia's role in our 2016 elections.
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my colleague senator cardin introduced a bill to establish an independent commission. i was original cosponsor of that because i agreed with him. we must examine exactly what went on in order to fix it. that is the same reason we must ,llow these investigations whether it's director mueller's investigation or the work that is going on, the more bipartisan work i emphasize that the senate intelligence committee. we must allow those to go forward. i envision a more 9/11 commission and we are not quite there yet where we can actually go back through it so we are changes toct policy respond to it. we allow these other investigations to go forward. all of these tools would help to secure our elections. you look at the cyber security bill i started out with at the beginning, the one that puts the
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money into our state election systems. republican and democratic national security official support the policy. republican and democratic state and local officials secretary of state's, the head of the freedom caucus is chairing the bill in the house, mark meadows, because they are so concerned there will be a hack that they support the idea of bolstering our state election systems. if you wonder why they take it on. they are so afraid it's going to happen, they are afraid we will federalize the elections after it happens. you take your support were you can get it. that is what is happening. it is time to put politics aside and come together to secure the future of our elections. a four-star general, a fourth or a computer engineer at foursquare, this is an issue that unites us. i will end with a quote from joseph stalin. there's a reason for this.
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that's called jarring your audience. was askedoseph stalin about a vote in the central committee of his party. stalin was unconcerned about the vote. after all, he exclaimed, he said that who voted was completely on and -- completely unimportant. what was important in his words was who would count the votes and how. inis now 95 years later and so many times we are back at square one. that same idea, that it does not matter who votes, they tried to influence that. that is the exact philosophy that we are seeing and actions we are seeing from russia again. they are trying to control, not only who votes, but who counts the votes and how.
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we all know russia is not our -- other countries if they see us do nothing will be emboldened to do this as well. anyone who would block the bill, the bipartisan bills i just discussed, if the worst happens in 2018, it is on you and it is not just russia. he will have to explain why we ignored doing something when we have all this money that's going into security and military defense, if we put none of that in the cyber security defense, we see a new weapon these countries are using it is on the people blocking that. the 2018 election is the number 266 days away. hacked me once shame on you, hacked me twice shame on us. we know they will do it again. we have solutions and we must
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act. it's time to set differences aside and get it done. thank you very much. [applause] neera: thank you senator for that powerful message and your outstanding leadership. i have the great privilege of welcoming our next guest, former secretary of the u.s. department of homeland security jeh johnson. during his tenure as -- in the obama administration, secretary johnson served as the primary legal architect for our nations counterterrorism missions. he led our nation's efforts to defend the 2016 elections from attempted russian interference. since leaving office, he's continued to serve as an outspoken voice on the critical importance of strengthening our election security because he knows how critical it is for our democracy.
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robert gates has called secretary johnson a man of great integrity with common sense to burn. he is also called him the finest lawyer he ever worked with him government. we are thrilled that he is here to share insights with us about what happened and what we can do in the future. give a warm round of applause for secretary jeh johnson. [applause] >> i want to thank senator kohl bush are for her remarks>> -- ar her remarks. just as the zone in on the work -- i'd love to
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have you share with us the points you would like the public to know about that effort and why you took it and why you saw it is so critical. first, thank you for having me here. it's nice to be back at center for american progress with so many good friends. i came here while i was in office once for a roundtable discussion with your colleagues and it was a great session. i have one story i want to tell. i was a college intern for the united states senate 40 years ago. for a great man, senator daniel patrick moynihan. day, when i was working, when i thought the senate was in i was working in the
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mail room in the basement that day. jeans and a t-shirt. i went up to the senator's inice to deliver the mail the senate office building and the senator's driver and i were , iking out and he said to me have an idea, let's take a ride on the senators only elevator. we can't do that. they are not around, it's ok. i really don't think we should be doing this. so we are standing at the -- i could point out the same elevator bank because i will never forget the bank and i can point out to you the exact same elevator bank because i'll never forget that moment. and push this button. i'm standing there in front of the double doors. doors open and there is senator
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erry goldwater staring me in the face like this. i have t-shirt and jeans. skipping a beat, without batting an eye, he says hello. i ride it on cnn yesterday. jake did not ask me about this. as far as i can see, it is n objective, sober, 50 state assessment of where we are on election cyber security. so to get to thence to your in 2016, we saw an intelligence picture of
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attempts to nment infiltrate our democracy and the latere was pretty clear by summer 2016. the point, then, the issue then became what to do about it. first and foremost, in the view f many of us in the administration including the president, we had to tell the american public what we saw. nd during the election season, though there was no doubt that we had to do that, the analogy i actually in the situation room is if i'm the issuer of a and i see a powerful market manipulator attempting to manipulate the price of my stock, i have a duty to tell the investing public what i see going on. but. this was not something you just wake up one morning and put in a because the national security apparatus of our asked to was being inject itself into an ongoing
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political campaign. taking be perceived as sides. we might ourselves be perceived as putting the thumb -- our the scale of election outcome and you had one of the capped dates saying the election is going to be rigged. and so there are a lot of considerations. many people say why didn't you sooner and why didn't the president do it? like every difficult security decision, somebody says why didn't you do it? somebody says why didn't you do it this way? you do says why didn't it sooner? we did issue a statement on i thought 2016, which was going to be full banner accusing a ll news foreign superpower of intervening in our democracy, unprecedented thing. but it didn't get the attention, it should have because same day, we had the e-mails.f more d.n.c. we had the hurricane in florida
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"access hollywood" and you recall all that weekend, speculation was when is he getting out? survive?e he's finally crashed and burned. statement, the statement that we issued was literally andw the fold in "the post" "the times" that day and it really wasn't until december election that the mainstream press came back to and said the russians interfered in our election. yeah. but the effort really proceeded on two tracks. there was the hacking of the including the d.n.c. e-mails but also and in my not more equally if troublesome, the scanning and around voterwe saw registration data bases in what d.h.s. now says is 21 states. nbc did a report the other week the big headline was they ually -- they actually
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infiltrated and gained access to oter registration data in a handful of states. that is not new news. i said in a public statement 2016, that the russians had actually gained access to several voter data bases. for the reasons reflected in this report is a threat to our democracy. because this was my fear in 2016, a voter can show up and say sorry, you're not registered to vote. by altering names or deleting a list or something. hen it comes to our national elections given the electoral politics d given our nationally where the vote for president really only comes down five or six swing states.
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election outcome for president dances on the head of a pin. and if you can target key precincts in swing states and the outcome there, you can influence the national a presidential election, the writers of the show "house of cards" figured out last season so i think a whole lot of other people can do the same. i want to get -- i'm going to specifics get into around the -- the russian attempts for the election system. i wanted to ask you a broader question just so we focus on how happen again. when you -- when you look at last countries over the ear, france, germany, where they've faced similar efforts. t least similar russian disinformation efforts, the information and the way the
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media responded was very different. going forward one of the reasons it might be is used to much more russian efforts disinformation o undermine democracy at large and to undermine democracy at large. your k you what's confidence that going forward american institutions not just institutions like congress, but media others are , equipped to address what's happened more prominently at the public with what's going on. identify these attempts as they happen. if we have information in a state that russia -- that here's foreign interference or russia is hacking again. that concern ress prominently in the state and nationally. o you think we're in a better place? or do you see -- i mean, i can
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on ine your frustration october 2016 thinking is the world upside down? of had similar feelings. worldyou think we're in a where the world is righting itself? concerned about media attention on this issue. with all due respect to my friends in media, there's an attention deficit and the media gravitate towards the story of the day. the latest white house staffer to be fired. vs. the longer term. list.s a long >> or troublesome underlying issues that affect our democracy that threaten our democracy. and, you know, there are a number of news organizations that have interviewed me about topic. sometimes the interview gets back burnered by, you know, the
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issue of the y, day. seeon the hill, i'm glad to that the senator and others are focused on this issue. takes a back seat to, you know, the story or the bombshell of the day or the week. and that's what happened in ctober 2016 when we wanted to give the american public the information to arm them with the full knowledge of what the russian government was doing. nd, you know, amy is right to say that 266 days to the the first days for primary, i'll add to that, less before the rs presidential primaries begin again. less than two years. you know, get out of your mind or even three years. less than two years from now, the presidential primaries begin. not have to uld attack to actual
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inally make this an ongoing consistent front burner above the fold item. >> can you tell us more what went into your important ecision to designate election infrastructure as critical infrastructure, that is an important designation and the designation, the effects that had. >> yes. so there's a little bit of a this.y to in the summer of 2016, when we looking for ways to harden he cyber security around election systems, somebody on my staff said, you know, you're secretary of homeland security. the authority to designate election nfrastructure as critical infrastructure. and that means we give that priority in terms of our security assistance. really, i do? different agencies of government must i consult before i do that. and i was told only the white
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advisor on homeland security. well, enough done. with aised this idea with all the state officials in a conference call that i had in 2016. to my surprise and disappointment, the sentiment at east of those who spoke up was neutral to negative. federaleived it to be a takeover, binding operational directives and they didn't want the feds to be taking over their process. t least those who expressed their point of view. so i put the designation aside because we concluded it was more horses toto bring the water and not drive them away by aking this designation that they would regard as an attempt to take over. more important to get them to
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seek our assistance and that was actually a good news story. we got in the run-up to the election, 33 states and something like 36 counties. i can't remember whether colorado was one of them that cyber security assistance and we identified a number of vulnerabilities in the election.the so that was the good news. designation o the just before i left office because frankly it was something we should have done years before. there were 16 critical infrastructure structure sectors defense, utilities. why not the centerpiece of our democracy? we designated election a subsector of the already designated government infrastructure. sector. and in my opinion, that was a no brainer. i had one more conference call
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election officials. i heard the same objections but did it anyway. because it was just something that i thought had to be done. and that means that d.h.s. gives tate election officials a priority in the cyber security assistance they provide. get the protection of the international cyber norm that that nation states will not attack the critical infrastructure of another nation. and it provides for a certain level of confidentiality in the communications with state officials. so those are the chief advantages and it's now for the the currentress and administration to build on that. think, astory raises, i kind of fundamental question hich is -- which is one that's permeated all of these discussions on one level or nother which is are you surprised by the level of partisanship that exists in
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this? you know, to outdate myself to say that i lived through and the cold war where there was a uniform view republican, we'd fight - you know, we'd u.s. and then soviet attempts to undermine american democracy or anything else. but in this election, what was was thatsing, i think, not only that you had a major candidate who was inviting some level ing on but it also seemed to permeate local even state and officials are dealing with this if you look at the moment even nunez discussion of the memo, we have partisanship and oll orization, not polarization, partisanship against the intelligence back, how ust to step difficult was it or how much of partisanship to you as you were trying to make these
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know, in about, you any previous era would have been bipartisan if not uniform consensus? a little bit of good news. the 33 states that came to us assistance didn't trend blue or red. >> that's great. that's good. pretty random cross section of the country. and in terms of your report, as i could see, the grades, you know, you passed out a and ds to blue and red states. so that does not -- the degree o which states seem to be interested and committed to this issue does not seem to depend on their politics. so that's -- that's good. not disappointed that enough people on both sides of the aisle regard this as a direct threat to our democracy.
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is.ause it f a foreign power seeks to tip the scale, put the thumb on the scale of our election outcomes in this country, that's a very serious problem. and nation states to an extent the same way which is in order to get them to stop to g something, you have make the behavior cost prohibitive. nd it is concerning that the administration is not acting on and fully implementing the passed s that congress because you have to make the behavior cost prohibitive. and i'll tell you this my own security you cannot prevent all cyber attacks in our nation. it's like trying to catch rain drops. you're on defense. the goalie in hockey and you cannot prevent all attacks. what you can do is make states cost ation
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prohibitive so they recognize it is not worth it to me, it is not worth the cost to do this again. i'm afraid that the united states government has yet to do that. the russian government has been given very little disincentive to repeat what they did. that point, i'd say that there's a big question how we're going to go moving forward. ou expect ray tillerson saying russians are going to continue to make these attempts. -- they say so far no consequences for acting. are you about -- i guess i'd love for you to give a sense of how worried you are 2018 elections. and how important, you know, our state election officials in an ongoing basis is to create that level of accountability. i would just report even with few states out a
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have taken additional action of their grades so there is accountability in that mechanism, pennsylvania has taken some additional steps around paper ballots. what is the sense -- put this in two questions. what hat is your sense of russia will do going forward given the sanctions haven't been by the trump administration and given there have been no consequences so far. number two, what advice, i would you leave all of us on how we can protect our these next 266 days? what are the steps that we should take? >> three things. one, in answer to the first part f your question about 2018, nothing would surprise me at this point. nothing would surprise me in of the full extent to state, a foreign government can and -- can and our go to try to influence
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domestic policy. >> so far, it's been a pretty good bet for them. number two, i think it's ncumbent upon the american voting public to hold accountable their state election integrity of the elections. three, it's number important that we -- and this is different aspect of the problem here, that the american voting public, the american public, you know, the concerned with a certain level of skepticism. i think it's time that the merican voting public review kes a qualitative of the so-called news that's being fed to them every day. and we as americans begin to our own filters, you know,
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we self-edit the information choose to accept as true. when i grew up, we had for news.s cronkite, brinkley, conventional newspapers and, you know, i -- something happened in the course of a day, i didn't believe it happened until walter it happened at 6:30 on channel 2, cbs. i knew it happened much he was my gatekeeper for news on a daily basis. there's such a plethora of ways people, particularly young people now, get that they accept as rue through less than perfect filters and i think it's time more e all look with a skeptical eye at the information that's pushed at us that we believe, you know, far too many people are -- and i have a l of us responsibility for this. ar too many people view with
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great skepticism and suspicion their government and what their government is doing. people are naturally suspicious of government power. people when any certain politicians not mentioning any names say certain just are prepared to accept what he said about the .b.i. or the department of justice. and so in these efforts that efforts by russian -- by to inject tforms themselves into the information arketplace or on our politics, i think we need to be more skeptical of what we're hearing and seeing. on this and ask you this issue which is kind of a perfect illustration of this example. great work on how russian bots are amplifying messages. over the last couple of weeks, the russian bots that are
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essentially tools of the russian government have been amplifying the memo which is a hashtag to pressure on republicans and he media, etc., around releasing this memo that nunez wrote, a partisan memo that he wrote. the memo's target was f.b.i. so just like as a moment to walk all of this, not 2016. we're in 2018. amplifying a re message that undermines the federal bureau of investigation. live in that world where right .i. is the agency now investigating -- part of an investigation into what russia's in the campaign. and yet, we don't seem to have a of hair on fire moment that the russians are basically undermine an investigation into their world using social media. established media organizations have you all in whatroom heard say exactly
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she just said? pretty simple proposition. that's -- that's an alarm. that's, you know, that's a fire alarm going off. you know, that should be a code red in my view. so -- >> yeah. >> what is your question? >> no, i guess what i'm -- i'll i'm venting. but i guess what i just did say, how do we we can all play a role make that as clear to people as possible. i think the world that we're in there's such a level of partisanship. are there other institutions that can play that role? obviously, the media's role that is in that world is less limited. things that we have to do ourselves to kind of communicate directly with people to try to become active counters in social mooa. i'll start at the top, i
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responsibility our he obligation of alarm andto sound the call out a direct attack on our democracy. from beyond our borders. heard him do as that? in the face of an ongoing campaign to affect our democracy. it's happening right now. our president w, is the most watched listened to person in the country if not the planet. so if he does not undertake this obligation, who will? >> thank you. thank you for your -- thank you for your being here. a lso want to just say heartfelt thank you for all you've done over the years to protect our democracy. protect the country. thank you so much, secretary johnson.
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[applause] > i am so pleased to be moderating this election security panel with three outstanding guests. panelists have been at the forefront of instituting best practices in their states help protect election infrastructure and our third national s a noted security expert who understands between tant interplay federal and state policymaking. first, let me introduce judge choat, the current elections director for colorado. is one of the highest scoring states in our report. colorado most notably conducts its elections by mail with paper ballots. he is responsible for
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mplementing cutting edge risk limiting audits which are essential to ascertaining the of election results so welcome. next, we are joined by edgardo cortez. e served as the first commissioner of elections for virginia under the former governor. mr. cortez pulled off a bit of a miracle last year when he transition inia's away from paperless voting achines to statewide paper ballot voting systems just in time for virginia's 2017 elections. welcome, mr. cortez. we are joined by jamil jaffer, the founder of the security institute at the antonin scalia school of law at george mason school where he is a professor. he recently served as a clerk to justice neal gore such of the
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court.upreme prior to his current positions he held senior roles on the intelligence committee and in the george w. bush administration so welcome to each one of you. before i start questioning and hopefully we'll have a few q&a, i want audience to share with you all our thanks center of american progress to all of our coalition allies and partners. in the you are here room. all of you have been working as you ly and i think heard from senator klobuchar and not aary johnson, this is challenge that we are going to overcome by one person or one organization. to be a collective effort and i want to really call out verified voting and common so many other organizations for your incredible work. so please welcome our panel. [applause] ok. edgardo, i'll start with you,
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the election miracle. you showed the nation how a quickly upgrade -- based voting er systems. which virginia did last year, just weeks before the election. you tell our audience sort of about the experience? first of all, why it's so have upgraded to that system and a little bit about the experience as you that lesson learned with other states and our audience with us today. >> absolutely. for having me today. i think, you know, ultimately virginia came down to one of confidence in the know, as i toldu the state board of elections and our local election officials as headed into the decision about decertifying the equipment, you know, if we had day, the n election question was would we be able to get up there with confidence in tell of the cameras and our voters that we had confidence in the results and
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tallies, what the votes were. i think we had reached a point with that equipment that we do that. there's no way to verify something went wrong. the accuracy of those results. as even election administrator and as somebody, you know, being the face of elections at the time just was not something i would be comfortable doing. forward decertifying the equipment. you know, very difficult for our local governments to transition in such a quick time frame. we had -- we worked a lot not just with our local governments ut worked a lot with the vendors, the voting equipment vendors that were out there to figure out how to transition how to get new equipment in place. we're already in the start of a know, year and so, you work with vendors to figure out financing options for new equipment, working out all sorts of things related to delivery of
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thankfully we already had paper ballots that were certified in the state for use in the state. so in thankfully picking from o options. virginia, the in cost fell to local governments to pick up the tab. auliffe tried a couple of years ago to get state funding to transition equipment for everybody in the state and legislature decided it was a local responsibility and that the local government wooz have tab for that. but for us, one of confidence in to tell ss being able our voters, hey, regardless of what the outcome is, we are this.ence in that this is how voters voted. these are the ways people voted we have is a question ballots that we can go back to and verify and, you know, we had recounts afterof november which really would not have been possible if we were using those touch screen machines. >> that's interesting. the u saw the benefit from sort of increased confidence in the citizens themselves that you
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can go back to them and tell this and plemented there's a direct result. >> yeah. elections.t of close the legislative level in november in virginia, and i came down tof them recount and we would not have been toibl to give people that of what the outcome was. we would still have been using immediate e had an kind of election scenario where having transitioned over to benefits right away. >> all right. helping to lead the nation in election security preparedness particularly by first state in the nation to require risk limiting audits. an you tell our audience a bit about the state's decision to require those audits and the success of carrying them out in 2017? as you start talking about if you'd alsofic, address why more states now are looking into carrying out those limiting audits and are there any lessons that can be
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colorado to the other states as other states are looking at this practice? sure. thanks for inviting us. we really appreciate it. colorado takes a lot of pride in great to ons so it's be celebrated. so auditing your election really important first step in guaranteeing that you've carried out a good election. there are various ways to do audits. audit of a do an particular race or particular piece of equipment. an can do a random audit of entire election which is what we did before we instituted just audits or do a risk limiting audit and a risk requires an t assessment of the outcome of particular races based on how that otes were cast in race and how close the margin was. nd so you're picking out particular ballots to determine whether or not those ballots were counted correctly. looking back at a cast vote record.
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a risk limiting audit it requires newer quipment and requires more sophisticated tally and scanning many can't really do -- states couldn't do a risk limiting audit right now because they don't have that level of equipment. so really, we need to be able to equipment. so states need to upgrade their equipment, perhaps the federal fund ment could fully hava. that would give us a chance -- just suggesting that might be a good idea. and then that might give states he chance to upgrade their equipment so they can do risk limiting audits. limiting g risk audits, what does the public feel about them? again, does it instill confidence? do they see that there's a benefit to doing so with either money?g the additional >> so intellectually it makes a lot of sense. a close race in which a lot of your voters voted. well, that's a race where you
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looking at more ballots. if you have a race where the margin is pretty wide and didn't of voters, that's a race where you don't have to the at as many ballots so concept of a risk limiting audit really makes sense to people and for that reason, i think the confidence that people have in the way that you're auditing and checking on you're the results of your election into that natural instinct that your voters have. so from that perspective, risk audits make a lot of sense and it makes a lot of elections an administrator position because to make re, we want sure that our equipment actually analyzing or of assessing how a particular voter more and we can do that sort of in a more straight forward way and more -- in a way better assesses how a
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particular outcome was based on how close or how many votes were cast. limiting audit really does sort of tap in to how overall assessment of an election was conducted. discussed a lot about state and local interplay in the federal government. the state in some ways, not withstanding, i think, secretary johnson said the states are protecting our nation from to do usctors who want our elections. as someone who has deep cyber ecurity experience, what is your view of the role that states play in election security and the support they need from government? >> i think that's a great question. and i think it's really important that we recognize and acknowledge what secretary ohnson and they told us which is to say that we are in the hroes and midst of an ongoing
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cyber campaign by a nation state to undermine our own confidence only our electoral system but our institution of governance. problem andemendous it's one we as a nation have to take seriously both localities that run these elections day to manage them and the federal government that ultimately benefits from these ballots cast the to the state and local levels in federal election. to playf us have a role in that process. i think secretary johnson is right. hat we as american citizens individually have a responsibility but when it comes questionable electoral outcomes and the role of the federal government, i think it's critical that the federal overnment provides the funding and the resources necessary to help states do their jobs. they are on the front lines very day dealing with these problems. and yet, this is a national level, national security problem cannot make light of. between the ion
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states that think the federal government should stay out of so i'm skeptical of an overemphasis on federal starnlds or federal requirements. at the same time, i think there's an important role for the federal government to play resources,g funding, information, capabilities, knowledge, best practices and the like and we've talked about this. we've talked about this since about d let's be frank it. the federal government has not done its job and states have had a result e as implementing the things they need to. and that was at a time when we about llenges internally now we're ter votes under attack by foreign nation states and we can't get our act together. that's embarrassing. >> both of you are members and you're on the executive committee of government council for election infrastructure which is comprised of the d.h.s. election
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assistance commission and then national association of secretaries of state and state local election officials from around the country. so just to pick up on his point. tell us about your experience working with federal entities on the issue of security. what's worked well? what hasn't? are there rooms for improvement from your perspective sitting at the state level. address and can you the challenges i think he went interplay.he state >> happy to do that. the secretary, secretary johnson ho you just heard from designated critical infrastructure on january 7th of 2017. we began meeting with the epartment of homeland security and the elections assistance commission very shortly and developed a game plan, created a sector plan, put together a sector so created the
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council t coordinating and now we're receiving services. tell you and can everybody who is concerned about the u.s. elections system that department of homeland ecurity and the government coordinating council and the states that are receiving those making are extraordinary progress in securing our elections. many states were already there. were doing a great job before. saw this as a art of their mission and an ssential element of conducting a free and fair election. even we, colorado was in that position. even colorado has received really important services through our relationship with and like i say, the governmental coordinating closely s working very with the department of homeland
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security. that i meet with -- i with weekly phone call that puty undersecretary runs the elections section. chris krebbs who is occasion.on and very important people in the department of homeland security. they clearly are taking this incredibly seriously and because of that, we're getting very important services, very quickly. ven the full on site two week assessments that they do of your system, now any state that wants to have one of those done can have them done before the middle of april. that's well in advance of many of the primaries that are going to happen in this cycle nd certainly in advance of the general election. so we're really pleased with the services we're receiving from omeland security and from the e.a.c. who has done an amazing job partnering as well.
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i think in virginia, we had a very similar experience to colorado which is the ability to work with the department of omeland security were just phenomenal. last year, you know, we're one of the few states to have a lastwide election going on year. and so they actually -- we got a from direct attention d.h.s. and we had them come down person assessments, we had people on the ground on election day. security folks from d.h.s. kind of with our cyber folks for day and the lead up to and i think the services they to me it's know, been, you know, we had a big during cyber security the mcauliffe administration and big focus on cyber security and doing a lot of things, i think, where d.h.s. know, where is, you
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it's been important is like he said, even if you're doing a lot things around figuring out how to secure your systems, where to make improvements, expertise to come in and review what you're doing and hey, look at it and say here are some potential vulnerabilities you may have in your system. them.re ways to address i think that's a huge help to election officials. you know, it can be an overwhelming thing to see, you a look at a very close and intensive look at your system and go, oh, my god, there these potential ways for people to get into or where our systems and so do we start? where are we going to get the most bang for our buck? do to, you know, in the time frame that we have to most impacts, i think hat's where d.h.s. and e.a.c. have been super helpful in coming in and helping, you know,
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resources. limited it would be great if we had some additional federal resources and states and local got those additional resources to help. but having that expertise come in and tell you, hey, here's potential vulnerabilities but, you know, you can focus on much it's going to have a bigger impact than if you focus on these other 10 things. feedback at sort of and advice and we never had a we tried to contact and had a question for department of homeland security couldn't get a very quick response from them. so i think overall, despite all level rhetoric that's been going on. kind of push and pull about control and federal intervention, the department has it very seriously and has been working very well, i think, with election officials. speaks to ink that something that senator klobuchar nd the bipartisan co-sponsors have built and secretary johnson have talked about. how important is bipartisanship
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addressing the issue of election security? >> i think it's critical. seen an explosion in partisanship over the last year in the last election and it's troubling and it's on issues at the start of our own democracy. when we're constantly at war another over these questions about disclosures and elections and voting, that makes impossible for us to see the which the out there coordination that has targeted our democracy. while i don't think that we're not going to have some level of artisanship, i would hope on this issue which is at the heart of our democracy. we'll find the common ground and find the path forward. this is an administration for hatever other things you might think about it has some capable cyber people involved. at the department of homeland security, all have long
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expertise in this area and rob sprayer. the folks that really get the issues of cyber security to work in a red cooperative matter i think at the state. of gettings a matter the states to find a cooperative middle ground here and it will big believer ot a in excessive federal spending but it will take federal dollars. reality is that in virginia, you know, there's an effort to get state funding that didn't happen. through thato work also. so there seems to be a partnership between the federal governments. but i'm hopeful there's opportunity here. 2018.ry we're too late for that's really what concerns me. talked about we here, paper ballots and audits these are sensible and obvious easures that need to be implemented. we're coming up on the deadline and edgardo did a great job to that point. i'm worried that other states are not there yet and won't get there by 2018. concern. >> that's going to be my sort of final question here looking at
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do you think ared states governments are to the for responding attack or the one that we can't even see happening right now. are we?ared then i want to turn it over to the audience. >> if you think of chunk into pieces. we have a whole bunch of election systems that operate in election. the -- where you mark your colorado, we have ballot marking tools and in other states, they might have d.r.e.s. your ballot, those are not connected to the internet. realistic way in which you can influence a vote at the point of which the vote is made -- is to be present. to be right there. in many cases break open the system. like literally get out a screwdriver and start playing chips inside of the equipment.
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the most part, that particular part of our election system is protected because of nature, the way that we've set it up. then, is your voter registry. so your voter registration system. hat is connected to the internet. and so that's where we're utting a lot of our focus because that's where somebody that is sitting in their russia can actually try to influence and get access our systems. and so that's where d.h.s. and .a.c. and the states are working together to really try to protect those systems, to harden those systems. we're making extraordinary progress on that. we were already in very good shape. to sort of correct one misnomer that's out there, we're that one state was hacked voter point where registrations were successful.
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there was another state which of close and then there were the other 19 states which scanned. scanned does not mean hacked. they were basically knocking on the door and then they went away. and then that one case, no files were actually changed. can walk away from 016 feeling pretty good about where -- what happened because there weren't really any penetrations in particular that changed the outcomes or changed files. but the other part of the system we really need to address or be conscious of is election so this is the reporting of the results because if you report results which are, wildly incorrect, and then you have to go back and no, those e results, were wrong. ones.re the real you have a potential problem there. again, you're working with lot of this. if we can secure our voter reg systems and then these external
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a lot to do have with the confidence that people have in elections, those two elements are really important. can feel pretty secure, though, that the votes that they cast are properly read and are states properly by the and are cataloged so that the outcome is accurate. i mean, we can feel pretty good that at this point. >> how do you feel about it in 2018? >> i think states and local election officials are in pretty overall.pe i would echo some of his comments about the overall state readiness of administering a well run election in november. that voter registration systems are kind of biggest point, the biggest potential point of failure in the process at this point. i think a lot e of states have been putting in substantial resources. think there are, you know, there are states getting ready to and have been either
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new itioning to registration systems and as part f that process, you know, are looking at security issues at the beginning of the process of systems.new or for those that aren't getting equipment or new systems in place have been spending a lot to esources figuring how address any potential vulnerabilities so i think that's a big one. terms of equipment, i actually, you know, from a -- standpoint of, you now, the actual impact on the election, i think that the equipment especially the older quipment, the touchscreen equipment i think where we head in terms of virginia and i think where a lot of the turn around that equipment is, you know, decision a to our lot based on the fact that we -- here's no way to tell if there's been any tampering with the equipment. if there's been anything that
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the equipment to functions and so the -- you know, not having a way to validate on the back end question, i think for me, creates, you know, from standpoint, creates a very big concern. so i do think that those states using, you know, paperless equipment, there does i do o be a priority but think the registration systems important. board are i think the last thing i point to is we've talked a lot about, interplay between the state government and the our local ernment, election officials and, you local level t the before, that's really where a lot of this is going on. there's such a huge disparity in terms of resources offices.ocal election i mean, the -- and i'm sure he
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colorado, me issue in we're in virginia. we have locals that are, you that's 000 voters and what they support. they have maybe a part-time i.t. person that comes in once a support. give them some and then you have, you know, fairfax county which is bigger of itsme states in terms operations. cyber security resources. so i think that gap, that resource gap at the local level, is going to become more prevalent and my concern when we alk about cyber security and talk about the resources, same we g with equipment where n't end up with smaller locits localities have a different concern than those with more resources. when we talk about resources and about our focus, we do need o take into account our local government and figuring out how we can strengthen there.
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yber readiness and their preparedness because, you know, they end up being, state that y, the was access and has been through a local election office and so and making focus sure that we're looking at resources for our local election officials will be critical. >> thank you. i'm going to turn it over to the audience. i think we have a time for a question or two. there's a microphone here if you stand up and identify yourself and ask the question. again, we have about five more minutes. and people have questions for our panel. >> hi there, edgardo. all the people ho were assigned to wrong precincts, wrong legislative places in virginia, do we know the result of a hack? if so, how do we know that?
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>> so there was a -- for those aware, there was issues in november about individual voters being misassigned. that wasn't from an outside intrusion in a number of different ways and i think his goes to kind of the security of the voter registration systems. all, the rst of logging processes that we have in places in virginia and that a lot of states have in place in of figuring out when the system has been accessed and how those records have been changed. when all of that happened. so we all of that and know that there's things that happened a very long time ago instances.f those and then kind of our ongoing with d.h.s. and the state .t. agency in terms of looking at our, you know, looking at virginia's current access to you system and we have, know, virginia is one of the states where the voter
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actually on system is behind the state firewall and so protections of that are in place for all of the state i.t. infrastructure. just elections but we have a couple levels there of protection. in anyway ot related to this -- to this issue but, you know, it speaks to the human factor in all of this, too, and making sure that we shore up that side of it. i was going to ask whether you have a final word as we close out here. ust dove tail on what edgardo was saying. most if not all systems have audit logs. o we can audit literally every change that's made to a particular person's record. that's another way in which we -- we can sort of back track. we can walk back somebody's entire record and know what happened, when it happened and why. we often have like scanned
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what nts which show happened with a particular change. o i know a person was republican until they changed, you know, on october 17, 2012, later, they weeks switched to independent. and then they switched back to republican another six weeks because i have each one of those documents and i can see them all. so that's what a good v.r. does and that's what colorado has. that's probably what virginia has and that's awhat all the need to have if they don't have it right now because that's sort of the central focus after. the russians were and that's where our main point of vulnerability is is our voter system. if we can put money into voter reg, that would be money well spent. >> look, i think the one thing this, even all of though we have concerns about our electoral system and we have concerns about the influence of governments, i think the easiest solution to all of these problems is for people to get out to vote and vote.
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tod lows soe're on historic if you're concerned about these issues and concerned about the states beingms and able to gather and protect the vote, best solution to that is vote. >> in a beautiful c-3 kind of way, i'm going to encourage everyone to do that. me just close where i began by thanking my center for forican progress colleagues a tremendous report. by thanking our allies who work in this space every single day. thanking each and every one of you for being here and jamil edgardo for all of your continued work and insights. thank you all very much. [applause]
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