>> the national governors association is holding its summer meeting in new mexico and today governors discuss the future technology landscape, work force equality, opioidses and nuck economic opportunities in the outdoors. this coverage will air tonight here on c-span and starting in prime time at 8:00 eastern. and saturday, the final day of the national governors association summer meeting. governors will hear about an international perspective on federal and state collaboration, the importance of arts and history education and preparing the future work force.

watch that discussion live from santa fe, saturday, 12:15 eastern here on c-span. . . izennedy is the director of democracy and government reform for the center for american progress. thanks for being with us. we are approaching the november midterm elections. still people concerned about whether the integrity of the voting is in place. do you feel the white house and congress are doing enough? guest: i do not feel that currently there is the appropriate government response to lead us through to the kinds of steps we need to secure all of our elections. it is wonderful news that congress last year had in fact appropriated $380 million to support state and local elected officials in their work to increase cyber security measures , transition away from machines,

those machines that do not yet use paper ballots. unfortunately there are still 14 states are not all voting on paper. five states do not allow voters to vote on paper at all. when you still have the president of the united states questioning and undermining the findings of his intelligence community as to the extent of fact that the the kremlin was behind this attack on the infrastructure. we have not seen a legislative response from congress that would mandate or even have greater incentives to put in place the kind of election security protections we need to guarantee free, fair, accessible, and secure elections. host: i want to put on the screen -- this is from pew research that takes a look at what they say is a password system of voting methods in the

u.s. some offer optical scanning. the area in gray is electronic. the area in orange is mixed optical scanning and direct recording. is in place out west, including the state of oregon. it is a variety of systems based on the states and counties. typically, voting has been a state issue. should it a national issue? should the federal government take this over and have one uniform standard? guest: those are not opposed issues. states and local officials run their own elections. all voting is local. it all happens in communities. in terms of administrating our elections, state and local officials will always be responsible for getting that done where the rubber meets the road and we thank them for the

tremendous job so many have done in administrating our nations elections. we also have national standards around voting for 100 years. since we determined to is eligible. the 19th amendment or the 26th amendment where we determined the national standard for a age 18 ord 18 -- at when we passed the voting rights act or in the national voter registration act where we said there has to be a national standard for allowing people to register to vote through dmvs, , there one mail-in form were patchwork provisions encumbering americans right to vote more than others. this is another instance where we do not expect local governments to repulse a physical attack on their land. we would not say good luck with that, south carolina, we hope

they do not make too much of an incursion off your beaches. saying agents are attempting to infiltrate, went into not just the digital water gate the hacking of the democratic party apparatus, but state voter databases, we know there were over 20 states whose databases were attacked and probed through election vendors also receiving the same kind of spear phishing attacks we saw against the democratic party apparatus. requires -- when we know there are foreign states leading those attacks, that requires a larger degree of federal support for states and federal standards. all election security experts agree we need to move to a place where every american is able to vote on a paper ballot. there needs to be mandatory

postelection audits that are effective to confirm that all ballots have been counted as cast. out with a report, a lecture and security in all 50 states, looking at the best practices across seven criteria and where states were in be minimum cyber security standards. it is terrific there is already a federal elections assistance commission that does help with some of these questions, that does help -- there is now, election infrastructure has been dedicated as critical infrastructure. of an alltill a lack of government response from the top. a lack of urgency in terms of passing the bipartisan legislation which is in the senate, which would help move states toward some of these minimum baseline standards. some states have been taking actions in front of the 2018

elections, which is wonderful. we need to start looking at 2020 and what we need to plan in terms of a secure election. host: based on what you just said and where we are now and where we are moving in 2020, congressman pete sessions is the chair of the house rules committee. this is what he said about the issue. [video clip] funded provided $380 million for the election assistance commission which was a final payment that was made in 2002 of $3.65 billion. 2002, just back in before that, there was an election that many people thought the outcome was wrong. , we would putreed $3.65 billion available for states to buy what they would choose for brand-new voting

theines to ensure assistance was given from the ,ederal government to states for the security of the voting public. year, 2018 funds this only weeks before the election, 39% of those dollars are still available. has not even been asked for this year. 19 states have yet to even ask for any application to be able to go in and update or change their system. the comments of congressman pete sessions. your response. guest: my understanding is all states have requested their funding. that was reported july 16 by the election commission.

it was absolutely the right response in 2002 when congress provided over $3.5 billion to the states after the debacle of the florida count and its ramifications in the bush versus gore race. their congress work up to the fact that there were election administration issues happening in the state and that states needed to be able to upgrade their voting systems to ensure free, fair, and secure elections. moved awaye, states from paper since that was the hanging chad and to these new electronic machines. technology that is 15 years old now and some of these states machines are still the machines they bought with these initial funds. any business in america that does not invest in their technology 15 years ago and leave it at that and think you

have come up to the state-of-the-art in where things need to be -- we understand these machines, who, again, many of which are over a decade old, they need to be upgraded. for example, georgia has requested $10 million that was provided through the formula for the $380 million disbursement. georgia has no machines that have paper ballots. the estimate is that in order to move all the way to machines for every voter that allows for paper ballots, which are the only type of ballots that could then be audited and a confident manner afterwards and the paper is much less likely to be hacked and the more secure provision, georgia whinnying between $35 million and $100 million to update the machines. we saw virginia upgrade all of the machines away from a paperless system to paper ballots before the 2017

election. that is the kind of urgency we need to see. in order to do that, states are telling us, bipartisan states are telling us they need the funding to move away from paperless ballots to voting on paper. that is the bare minimum all americans need to be able to expect. we need long-term investments. -- ais not something where further quote was, in two weeks, maybe we can find out this decision. american businesses are not going to be going the between one decision and the other. strategiclong-term plan to get all americans voting on paper. that will require a long-term investment. that starts now. it is not that long before the next presidential election. host: and kiss her audience is interested, the hanging chads were on display -- in case our audience is interested, the hanging chads were on display at the museum of american history. our guest is liz kennedy.

we are talking about the midterm election and voter security. let me go through three tweets. a possible bigger issue is voting -- is voter suppression. reaction? guest: that is absolutely true. a separate threat to this country is internally, the types of measures that are burdening people's access to the vote and unfortunately many of these provisions that are unnecessary in terms of protecting the integrity of our elections are keeping too many americans away from the polls. citizenseing eligible prevented from voting because they do not have one particular form of voter id. allow a hunting license but not a student id, even if it is government issued. there are threats internally to our equal access to our voting power. the is another thing where president's misstatements

continuing around the idea that there are any significant number of illegal votes is a red herring where as opposed to paying attention to that he ought to be leading a national security response to strengthening access and the security of our elections. host: second tweet. citizenship,oof of period. guest: all americans swear to their eligibility when registering to vote. proof of citizenship keeps eligible americans away from the ballot. where that was tried in kansas, 35,000 american citizens were prevented from casting their votes and having their voices heard because of these unnecessarily proof of citizenship requirements. a federal judge striking them down. the best efforts by so many people who have been leading the voter suppression efforts to prove there is a justification

based on any kind of insecure or illegal voting is falling completely flat. the secretary of state of kansas was censured by the judge for playing fast and loose with evidence. , thexpert he put forward judge indicated he was not to be believed. host: finally from our friend kiki, who has this tweet. why is our voter registration expire. unless i do, it should not. guest: wonderful point. the center for american progress and i are out with the data-driven research that shows how streamlining voter registration through policies like automatic voter registration when the state already knows all of the information it needs to confirm and it individual voter eligibility, they can just add someone to the voter registration list while still maintaining the ability to opt

out. same day voter registration is forxcellent safety valve contingency planning around an issue where if russian agents or arer foreign threats mucking about in voter registration databases and may someday succeed in manipulating that information such that when eligible registered voters go to a polling place they do not find themselves on the roles -- if states allow, and many states do -- we see huge spikes in people being able to participate in toing when they are able confirm their eligibility and register to vote on the same day, that is an excellent safety valve for these issues with election hacking. host: liz kennedy who serves at the director for democracy at the center for american promise. this is greg from huntsville, alabama, republican line. caller: i have three questions.

i want to say it is ironic that with our thumbs out and hitch a ride to the space station. it is like a seventh grade bunch of meddling in an election. outcome.t affect the instead of spending our time to stop what they have done, we seem to sit around and talk about everything but. i have a couple questions. ballots, in your opinion, is that the only way we should go? would be what would you consider a hardship? how long should the polls stay open for someone to be able to vote and not be a hardship? do we need them open 24 hours? what is that? let's get there and quit complaining about it. the divisiveness drives me up the wall. guest: i do think we need to

move to paper ballots. there are other cyber security and election security practices that experts recommend, all of which we identify in our election security in 50 states reports. there are other important things like minimum cyber security around voter registration, looking at tabulation. to thinkseline is about paper ballots and mandatory postelection audits. i agree with you about looking at -- in my view i think we need to look at this as a sputnik moment where we have seen that these russian agents were able to get in and around some of the election protections. not necessarily in a way we have absolutely no proof that any kind of votes were changed or lost or anything like that, but why should we wait for that tragedy instead of understanding that we need to get smart.

we need exactly the sputnik moment. we need to have the same kind of american ingenuity and government response to do a much better job and use our american attitude to get there. to your last question about weer access, i believe should have a standard of early wo weeksor essentially t that allows people to vote on the weekends. some people support and election day holiday. there are many workers are devoted vote on thanksgiving, which is already a holiday. there are still some that might not be able to take advantage of that. over allow early voting time, including the weekends, it cuts down on lines and increases the convenience for americans to have their voices heard. i would also note that in our increasing voter participation, we look at the programs for a vote at home.

there are votes in washington and oregon. every registered voter's sent a ballot. in colorado that happens as well. colorado also incorporates both centers, where people can cast a ballot in person and get assistance if they need to. that is an opportunity to make voting more convenient. i think we need to remember the importance of our vote and the power of our vote. every american citizen, all equal regardless of economic power, every american citizen can have their voice heard to determine the direction of the country and the makeup of their government. we saw a hundred 43 million eligible -- we saw 143 million eligible americans not voting in the 2014 midterm elections. we need everyone voting this year. joanne joins us from california on the democrats lined for liz kennedy. caller: good morning. , c-span,ing and thanks

for taking my call. i've a question. if i vote, regardless of which system i use, my daughter asked me, how do i know that my vote went in for that candidate. i will hang up and listen to response on the other end? guest: thank you for calling in with that question. it is important that americans understand that our local and state election officials are -- lots excellent job of people have tough jobs, running our election is a another tough job. we should not shake our fundamental confidence in the integrity of our elections which is that we have free, fair, and accessible elections in which every american can have their voice heard and trust their votes are counted as cast.

we are absolutely in a position where we need to trust but verify. that is why we recommend there be mandatory postelection audits -- the best kind of audits are risk automating audits which i will not bore you with the statistics, which have to do with counting a number of ballots depending on the margin of error -- the margin of victory for the candidates to confirm that the candidate that was initially indicated had one. go back and you tabulate the ballots by hand to confirm that outcome was correct. to get your point, we do recommend every state move toward mandatory postelection audit. at the same time, while we are taking every step to address this threat, we have to not lose confidence in our ability to elect our leaders and in the importance of making sure

everyone you know, you and your best friends make it to the polls this year. host: let's go to connecticut. josh is next, republican line. good morning. caller: you have a real slick talker this morning. you just said trust but verify. why wouldn't that apply to voter id? people do not believe you because you will not give us anything on the voter id, but you want a story about russia. i voted for trump. russia had zero to do with that. host: we will get a response. guest: thank you for your call. when i grew up in new york and i would go to vote, i am verified when i say who i am because they have a signature. every american voter who is showing up in person is already identifying themselves. long before the effort in the last 10 years to require strict photo ids, which again the

problem is that so many americans, some studies show that 25% in some communities do not have eligible drivers licenses. the elderly, who are no longer driving you not have eligible drivers licenses. host: but they can get another form of idea. what you saw in wisconsin before the 2016 elections, the state was saying they were going to provide free id but then there were voters who went to the drivers license bureaus and were turned away for the free state id or they were told they needed to go get their birth certificate to come back to get the id. it is a hurdle and an obstacle to casting a ballot. i think the most important response is there is a real , who inrom the russians 2016, as we know from the most recent indictments last friday, 12 russian agents indicted for

not just attacking candidates in the political digital watergate we saw, but for attacking voting vendors, for attacking voter registration systems. that is a real threat and that is the real threat we need to counter. every study about every kind of insecurity as a result of illegal persons voting has looked for that evidence and found none. you are more likely to get struck by lightning than to encounter an actual case of voter impersonation. we all believe in safe, secure, free, and accessible elections and we to address the real threats that exist. host: chat in south carolina on our line for independence. caller: thank you for taking my call. california is registering illegals and we know that. in the state of south carolina you have to have a drivers license to buy sudafed. how is that restrictive?

is that making it hard for people, causing a part -- causing a burden on people who have sinus problems? i was in florida in 2000. it was not the hanging chads, it was the butterfly ballot. that is another thing that is a problem. you have people making different ballots for different counties. if you look at the mathematical statistics on the people who voted for pat buchanan, it spiked hugely. me, ifllot issue -- to you have a social security id? there thatates out are blue states that register as many illegals as they can, and that should be a federal violation. one last thing -- how do we know the russians hacked the dnc

server if they never turned the server over? i am amazed at people believing everything the fbi says without any actual proof. i have seen none. host: we will get a response to your questions. thank you. guest: thank you, chad. that is correct that the butterfly ballot was another major site of problems in terms of questioning afterwards whether the election technology in use allowed people to vote for their actual preferred candidate. that ballot design -- that is why these questions of administration are so critical. buying sudafed is not a constitutional right, but casting your vote as an eligible american is. we do not see a problem of ineligible people really voting in federal or state elections.

you are right, there are some jurisdictions where for just their very local elections have upowed all residents to end voting, rather than restricting that two american citizens. host: in san francisco. guest: that is absolutely not the case that those local elections have anything to do with who is allowed to vote in a state or federal election. we saw voter fraud -- it is illegal. it is punished by five years in prison in some instances. we already have exactly the kind of legal protections, because we all agree we should have fair and free, accessible and secure elections. i think we cannot move away from this without recognizing that folks like the director of national intelligence dan coats are out there saying, warning signs are blinking red.

we know the russians have attacked us. expecttoday saying we the russians will continue their attack in 2018, in 2020. there is a lot that states are doing before 2018, but we need a full national response to the security issues before 2020, or else we are really not taking this national security threat as seriously as we need to do, to protect our american freedom of governing ourselves. host: liz kennedy, than >> the national governors association is holding its summer meetings in santa fe, new mexico. new economic activity in the outdoors. coverage will air tonight on c-span. you can see at starting in

primetime at 8:00 eastern. saturday is the final day of the national governors association summer meeting. and will hear about state local cooperate -- state and federal cooperation. atch on saturday beginning 12:15 eastern on c-span. >> c-span, where history unfolds daily. 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable companies. we began to bring you coverage of the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events in washington, d.c., and around the country. >> in the coming week, the house will take up several b