eastern on sunday morning. join the discussion. >> tomorrow, president will be in georgia for a rally supporting republican candidates. while coverage begins at 4:00 eastern on c-span. your primary source for campaign 2018. >> which party will control the house and senate? live election night coverage starting tuesday at 8:00 eastern as the results come in from house, senate and governor races around the country. here victory and concession speeches from the candidates. morning at 7:00 eastern, we will get your reaction to the election, taking your phone calls live during "washington journal." c-span, your primary source for

campaign 2018. now, a look at how state and federal officials are working to secure the 2018 midterm inctions from cyber threats response to russian hacking in 2016. millions in federal funds were given to states for election security. the federal government began sharing more information about cyber attacks. we will hear from more second -- four secretary of states. first, remarks from homeland security undersecretary for national protection and programs. >> one of the things i want to touch on today is not the work dhs has done. 2018 midterms lead up to being the most secure election in the modern era. i will explain what i mean by that.

i have whittled it down to three right now. september 11, 2001, two years ago with the russian attempts to enter there with the election, and the third anniversary is 1957 and the russians launching sputnik. on 9/11, that was a failure of intelligence and a failure of imagination in that we did not fuse all the information together to truly understand what was going on and take the appropriate action. the second was the failure of imagination on what our adversaries could do to use our infrastructure against us to undermine us as a people. what does that mean now? 15 years ago, two years after 9/11, the department of homeland security was created.

my organization was created a few years of that. we will get that name change in a couple of weeks. our responsibility is coordinating federal efforts to protect critical infrastructure. two years ago when the russians attempted to interfere with the 2016 election, that was a galvanizing moment. historically up to then, the american public had been thinking about cyber security from an intellectual property theft perspective, from a financial crime perspective. that was the first time across government and the public that we recognize cyber security could be used to destabilize government. to destabilize our democratic institutions. as a result, the department of homeland security designated elections a critical infrastructure subsection. that designation was not one that happened smoothly. there were some challenges in the partnerships. but in terms of where we are

today, i want to walk through three quick buckets. where we are today, the work we have made as a community over the last two years. the second is, given we are three weeks out, 21 days from the midterm election, what do we think might happen? what are we seeing in the ecosystem? dhs released a report last week that talked about what we are seeing. third is what we can do together. in terms of where we have come, it is important to recognize and underscore that local election officials are responsible for administering the elections. truism.n absolute the responsibility on the federal government is to provide technical resources, support, and information. one of those things with can do uniquely, including intelligence, to help state and local officials secure their networks.

in terms of the progress we have made, two years ago, there was no good way for the department of homeland security to reach out and communicate and share threat intelligence with any state election official, whether it is the secretary of state or the election director for a large city or county. dhs did not have those mechanisms. would probably did not understand there was such a thing as the election assistance commission. there was not a strong relationship between the two. now, we have governance mechanisms, which is a bad bureaucracy way of saying we all work together closely now. two years ago, we did not. we had communications protocol. if i need to get information to a single state, i can do it quickly. if it is classified, if they have a clearance, we can get it to them.

if it is actionable, we will deal with it later. we will get the information to them. we are providing assistance across the board. we have done about 35 vulnerability assessments for large jurisdiction states and counties. that is compared to about one prior to the 2016 election. again, there was not a strong relationship. i think the two most significant areas of progress, one is information sharing and analysis centers exist so network defenders and security officials can share information on current threats. as of february of this year, there was no election-related information sharing and analysis center. as of today, it has

participation from all 50 states and over 13 counties or local jurisdictions. that is one of the fastest-growing across the 16 sectors. that shows the commitment not just of dhs but of the election officials. they take this seriously. they have dedicated resources and are participating in seeing this as a team sport. the second significant amount of progress we have made is in terms of an intrusion detection sensor that we push out to state partners. it is another information sharing analysis center. prior to the 2016 election, less than 30% of state election officials and their networks were behind this intrusion

detection system. as of today in the run-up to the election in three weeks, over 92% of state election officials and their networks will be behind these intrusion detection sensors. that is a significant amount of progress. we will be there by 2020. this gets us the ability to push the same indicators that protect federal networks out to state networks. that is a significant amount of progress. we are not going to stop there. we will continue to increase partnerships and the ability of technical resources. whether a state or local official takes a dhs service, as long as they take some service whether in-house or from a partner, that is what matters. it is contributing to the overall network defense of elections. with that in mind, where are we right now from what we are seeing in the threat ecosystem? there was reporting yesterday

about a dhs he learned -- alert issued last week. this is another sign of progress . the report seems to intake -- indicate there is an uptick in activity. there is not. we are getting an increase in reporting from state and local partners to dhs of what was happening anyway. two years ago, there was no flow of reporting. that reporting was staying in the state networks. now it is flowing up to dhs so we have the bigger picture of what is happening, a more comprehensive threat picture, of what is going on across state and local networks. are we seeing an uptick? i don't know if we are. i think we are seeing a consistent and persistent level of activity, whether it is simple scanning looking for an open network, we continue to see phishing campaigns.

in terms of increase over baseline, we don't have a good sense if there is a dedicated campaign. from an perspective, we don't have indicators there is a significant campaign afoot as there was in 2016. what does that mean for us from a defensive and preparation perspective? we are planning and working with state and local partners to plan as if they will come back. that is covering the basics. in the cyber hygiene, 101 type stuff. making sure systems are configured the right way. we are issuing guidance. congress made a significant down payment of $380 million earlier this spring in the omnibus that allows states to invest in additional cyber security measures. we are not going to stop there. one of the things we did working with partners was issued

guidance that drew from vulnerability assessments over the last year or so and highlighted some things if states needed a wish list on how to develop an investment plan, provided some recommendations. given we are not seeing a real increase in activity, what do we think may have happened? keeping in mind that in 2016, there were three areas of activity. one was technical cyber security efforts to compromise state and local election infrastructure. the second piece was hacked and leak operations against campaigns and political candidates, and then leaking that information. hacking their email and releasing that via third parties.

the third is standard information operations across social media platforms. when i think about what may happen in the intervening three weeks, i think hacked and leak is still an opportunity for the adversary to continue to push guidance to political campaigns and working closely with a number of vendors. we also thank social media -- we have seen continued social media operations by the russians to push divisiveness across the american public. really find issues that have clear lines down the middle and amplifying the separation between the american voter. we continue to see that. we will continue to see that. when you think about it, the cost of investing those operations is fairly low. there is some preparation.

it is pretty effective and it is low-cost, low risk. when it happens, they can hit it and leave. from a technical cyber security perspective, it is more expensive to develop these operations, stand up the infrastructure, lay the groundwork for the attack. is certainly not as effective technically as an information operation, and the risk is significantly higher from being on networks and having presence. two buckets right there of attacking equipment of election infrastructure and information structures. the third piece is a hybrid attack, a combination of the two. think about two days before some sort of activity where there is a spearfishing campaign that leads to the compromise of a

network and taking down voter precinct checks, any information that a voter would need to check on voting. anything that would drive uncertainty across the voting public. that is probably the area we are going to see activity. it would not necessarily be in disrupting or compromising equipment in terms of changing the tally of votes. we have never seen them with access to actual vote tabulation. but it is undermining confidence in our democratic institutions, undermining the principle of the way we vote. that is the biggest opportunity. what can we do about that? the government can and will continue to push the basic cyber practices. multifactor authentication,

proper configuration, backups, backups, backups. we continue to see ransomware. good cyber practices. we will stop hammering the basics when we all get the basics right. what can industry do? industry, recognizing this is a shared responsibility and everybody has a role in this fight, has stepped up over the last couple of months in terms of offering services, free services, to state and local election officials and campaigns. credit should go to industry on this. thing we have to do going forward is make sure we are offering these services in a rationalized manner, something election officials in the run-up to an election can get a good

idea of the service, i can compare and contrast across services in a way that does not overwhelm them as they approach election day. last, what can the voting public do? when you go home tonight, check your voter registration. check to make sure you know where you are registered to vote so when november 6 rolls around, you know exactly where you are going. know what identification requirements may be. be prepared. the last thing, know your rights. every state does vote provisional ballots a little different. whether it is a technical glitch, they weather-related event, something always happens whether it is election day or primary day, something always happens. some curveball comes up. just know your rights. if something goes wrong, you have the right to request a provisional ballot. do that. everybody has a role to play here. this goes back to my third anniversary, 1957 and sputnik.

when sputnik went up, united states realized the russians have gotten an artificial satellite into lower orbit before we did. the technological might of the u.s. was put into question. but also given the icbm that launched a satellite into space, the american public now realized the russians could jump across those oceans, whether the atlantic or pacific, and everything was closer to home. the internet brings us the same realization in that other nationstates can influence the way we vote an attempt to undermine our confidence. as a result, there was a mobilization across government, industry, and the public to support that pushed to space. we are in the same place now. government, industry, and the public have a role in securing the vote. looking forward to the rest of the conversation today.

thank you for the opportunity to speak. make sure you know where you're going to vote. thank you. [applause] >> our program on securing the midterm elections continues with four secretaries of state. they appeared on "washington journal" in early october. >> your op-ed on election security is working. you begin that piece looking back on the day the department of homeland security notified it that state election systems had been hacked.

what you think the lesson was from those attacks? guest: it is important to remember there were 21 states attacked. it was only one state that was briefed according to the -- breached according to the department of homeland security. that means 20 states did their job and defended well against those attacks. if you look at where we are today in 2018, two years later, we are in better shape than we were in 2016. but i will say in 2016, i believe overall we were in pretty good shape. host: we are talking with secretaries of state from around the country today during the next two hours of "washington journal." we are asking them about election security. in your mind, when our voting machines most vulnerable? is it weeks or months before an election? is it on election day when people are voting? is it sometime after the votes are cast but before they are reported out?

guest: that is an interesting question the way you posed it. i would say i don't believe the voting machines themselves, unless you're talking about touchscreen technology perhaps, the vote tabulators which are usually just scanners and tabulate results from the actual ballots, those are not in danger. i think it is portrayed in the media to say there is potential. when you think about it, there is a strict chain of command for these memory cards. memory cards are not sent to the town clerks. in vermont, we don't have county governments so we go directly from the state level down to the town level. the town clerks manage our elections. they have a strict chain of

command with regards to the memory cards which they do not receive until about two or three weeks before the election. they do an accuracy test. in many cases, they are checked the morning up and when they shut down. it is important to remember we are creating a fine balancing act between cyber security and opening up our elections process to the general public. i think it is important to remember we are constantly focused especially since 2016 on cyber security. host: how much more is the federal government involved in this process since 2016? what has changed on that level and your relationship from the state level to the federal level? guest: let me back up to 2016.

when we first got the phone call , when the 50 secretaries of state were conference called with secretary jeh johnson, we were informed there was an attack that occurred and perhaps the federal government was considering creating a critical infrastructure designation for elections. we did not know what that meant. i think many red states and blue states, many states were opposed to the designation because we had no idea how it would affect our elections process. to say it was a rocky road in the beginning as far as communications, i think even dhs would agree to that. since then, we learned that critical infrastructure designation was designated in january of 2017. we did not find out what that meant to us until june or july of 2017.

we have since set up a coordinating council which i and others are members of. we have a lot of resources that the department of homeland security has provided to us. things like penetration tests, vulnerability assessments, cyber hygiene scans. in vermont, we do a weekly hygiene scan of our system through dhs currently. the communication level since last summer has increased, the summer of 2017, has increased tremendously. we have an election dashboard with dhs and the fbi. we will get real-time information as to any threats that might be on the horizon. we are constantly focused on how we can do this. i can go over the details. i'm sure you will ask about the different things we have in

place. host: a lot of the issues you talked about, a lot of the new aspects funded through the $380 million in federal funding that has gone out, vermont got about $3 million worth of the fund. how did you choose to use that? guest: first, let's talk about the $380 million. i was working with senator leahy to try to get the money released. that was left over hanging chad money from 2002. it was the remaining portion of the $3.9 billion that were handed out or approved in 2002. this was money already approved. it needed to be appropriated. many secretaries were pushing our congressional delegation to try to move that as quickly as possible.

most of us to not receive our money until june. we have been focused on things we can do. for instance, many states including my own have put in multifactor authentication for anyone that accesses our system. we also have added a new acceptable voting system that is fully compliant. we have done a penetration test fairly recently in which we came out with a very good report that said we were a mature, well defended system. those are things we have been doing with it. we hope to use some of that money going forward to purchase new vote tabulators in the future, probably for 2020 or 2022. host: we mentioned your work as the president of the national association for secretaries of state. do you know how many different voting systems are in use across all 50 states in all jurisdictions? guest: no, because it all varies. in vermont, we have in statute

it has to be the same system throughout the state. other states leave it up to the jurisdiction, whether county or local, to determine what units they have. it varies. there is a lot of different equipment out there. i believe every state, locality, county are working hard to make sure the systems are in good shape. as a best practice, and from my standpoint of vermont, i consider best practices to be voter-march ballot and a full election audit. voter registration databases are backed up on a daily basis. if the worst were to happen, we could always go back 24 hours and reset our database. we would only lose 24 hours worth of data. i think the ultimate resilience we have is in vermont we have same-day voter registration so nobody coming to the polls will be denied the right to cast a

ballot. host: you mentioned there are a lot of different machines available. how many different companies are making voting machines? are there a few big companies that lobby states to buy their voting machines? is there a lot of choice across the country? guest: i don't know if i would call it lobbying. we all work through different procurement practices throughout the country. in vermont, we will generally do eight to 12 months worth of business analysis looking at our requirements. it may require us to go back to the legislature to make a change to a statute. i cannot speak for other states as far as that goes. we do have different procurement systems. it is not like walking into best buy and saying i want to hundred of those machines. you have to go through a very strong process to determine what the requirements are, what the

analysis is, if there are process improvements needed, statute changes needed. it is a constant battle to do this the correct way. we usually go out for an r.f.p. we look at those r.f.p.'s. we review them and match them up against each other to see which looks to be the best fit. then we make the choice. to say they are lobbying us, i don't think that happens. obviously, every company thinks theirs is the best. host: has the federal government ever considered coming up with a standard voting machine? guest: i'm not aware of it. i know the election assistance commission at the federal level does certifications. in our state in vermont, that is one of the requirements i have, that any tabulator we pick must be adac certified or certified

by another state such as connecticut which uses the university of connecticut cyber security unit. host: joining us aboard the c-span bus is secretary of state denise merrill. we have learned since the 2016 election, connecticut was one of the states that had its voting systems targeted by russian hackers. what were the russians trying to do and how far did they get in connecticut? guest: yes, good morning. they did not get anywhere, frankly. we turned them back at the perimeter of our system, as we do most of these kinds of attempted incursions into our

systems. but i have to tell you it is a very common occurrence. the difference here is it was identified as a russian agency ip address. that got everyone's attention. they did not get into our system at all. by the way, the system is the voter registry. it has nothing to do with the tabulation of ballots or any of that. i would say we don't know really what they were attempting to do. i was president of the national association in 2016 so i was pretty involved in all the different things that went on in all the different states. we still don't really know because it was turned back in all but one state to i personally think it is to sow discord in the american public. i think if they were there to change the elections in any way, we would see it pretty quickly because we have paper backup lists. all the states have paper backup lists on the cloud and on the

ground. on election day if someone said i'm supposed to be on the list, i'm not on the list, if that happened in any big number, we would know it immediately. host: was there any rhyme or reason to the states the russian address chose to attack? was there something about connecticut's and the other states voter rules that represented a juicier target? guest: i don't think so. we are working with the department of homeland security who alerted us to this. it is very delicate. there is a certain amount of security involved. we don't want to be announcing exactly what happened because we don't want to encourage others to try it. most of them being turned away shows you we all have firewalls and protections for all our databases. this was no different. i don't think it was anything special to those 21 states.

now we are hearing there may have been more. this is just a matter of monitoring the traffic that goes in and out of the state. i am sure all states do that. host: the secretary of state of connecticut denise merrill is our guest on the c-span bus in hartford. we invite c-span viewers to join in on the segment. secretary of state merrill will be taking your calls as we continue this discussion. how much money did connecticut get from that federal fund to improve election security and how did you use it? guest: our share is around $5 million. very welcome because we can always improve things. we are using it to bolster our existing firewalls and other systems.

we are doing the kinds of checks one does on electronic systems for the voter registry. our biggest concern is at the local level. connecticut is a little unusual. we don't have county systems. everything is done at the town level. we have 169 towns. mostly small towns. each of them has a router in their town that is the drop point for this closed loop system that is our voter registry. when you register to vote, you register at the town level. the only people able to put names on or take names off the list are the local election officials. we are worried about the routers in those towns. we want to make sure they are as secure as the state system is because we house the servers at the state level.

we want to make sure local officials have sufficient training and understand you have to change your password frequently. we are putting in other protections at the local level such as dual authentication, making sure everyone is logging in properly. another type of attack we have seen in some places in the country, not in connecticut, are phishing emails. we are all familiar with those. a message that looks valid and real, but if you go on it, they can get into our system. those are the kinds of things we are focusing on with our money. we are hiring personnel to go into the towns to check their systems, give training, and that sort of thing. we are also purchasing extra tabulators. the tabulators we bought in 2002 with the help america vote money are somewhat elderly, but they

are also simple scanners. they are not connected to the internet. they are not connected to each other. i want to make sure people understand that. we vote on paper ballots. we audit the ballots afterwards. the tabulators have little cards in them that program the ballots. we want to make sure everything is working properly and up-to-date so we are purchasing extra tabulators with some of the money in case some of them give out during or after the election. we will have some extras on hand. host: as we turn to a discussion with secretary paul pate, who supervises the mr. sena elections in iowa, 99 counties. he is also running for reelection this year. he will be on the ballot in iowa. i want to start there with you, mr. secretary. are there any special rules that apply to you as someone running for and supervising elections? guest: just good common sense. clearly, i don't have the opportunity to be doing politicking or campaigning at

polling sites during election day. it is the county auditors who do the actual implementation and operating. our office is a collection point. my job is focusing on making sure iowans understand the pathway to be a voter and assuring them of the integrity. host: how are you assuring them of the integrity? guest: we have a series of roundtables across the state that involve coworkers, county auditors, the media, and other stakeholders in helping promote elections so they have the tools to help us spread the word to the community that we have taken all the necessary steps both from a cyber security standpoint and a normal process. we vote with paper ballots. everybody gets one vote.

reminding them of what an eligible voter is. reminding them of all the options they have for voter registration. we have quite a few. we have same-day voter registration. we have 29 days of early voting. we are aggressive on our voting. we make sure everybody has the information. host: i understand iowa received about $4.8 million from the federal funds to help improve election security. how are you using it in your state? guest: over 62% of it we are putting back into the county cyber area. that has been a big step. i have worked for a hard on the state level to upgrade our cyber side, partnering with our state i.t. people and the homeland security, fbi, various other experts and specialists. we wanted to make sure it got to the county level as well so we focused the majority of the money to make sure they have the malware and sensors and training.

we also partnered to make sure we got those systems installed in the counties before this november election. that was the biggest piece. we have added staff internally to make sure we have a cyber navigator and others internally to assist these counties to be successful. host: explain what an albert sensor is. guest: it is a monitoring system to alert the office and homeland security if any unwanted bad actors are trying to probe or gain entrance into any of our systems without authorization. that is a crucial step. we have other measures. i can go into all the internal security measures. but let me assure you we are putting everything homeland is recommending in place. host: the albert sensor, is that something you can react to immediately? is it more of a monitoring so we can understand how to fix it next time?

guest: no, it is immediate. an alarm goes off. we stopped them immediately. we don't wait for any follow-up. we say no interest r -- we say no entrance. clients have options. we have told them to stop them immediately. we will turn it over for full investigation by the fbi and homeland security. host: we've talked already this morning about the $380 million the federal government has pushed out this year to improve election security. how much of that went to west virginia and how did you use those funds? guest: great question. about $3.5 million came to us from the federal government. we had 2.9 million dollars left over from the hanging chad

timeframe of the 2002 election after congress appropriate money for the states to buy new machines. our legislature at the time set that up as a loan program. over the years, the loan program switched to the point where a lot of the vendors were providing better financing than the state loan program. that $2.9 million that unused. the legislature got that changed from a loan program to a grant program so we added that to the $3.5 million. that gave us about $6.5 million worth of buying power. we leveraged that further. we went to the counties and said if you want to match 50/50 on buying new equipment or any cyber security we would offer 80% in the county had to come up with 15%. you gave us about $12 million worth of buying power in the

state of west virginia. we pushed that out to the counties. instead of a centralized program, we pushed it out to the counties. we model that after the federal government. we appreciate the federal government not putting strings on the $3.5 million. they left it up to us as secretaries to determine how that would be used. we used the same principle with the county clerks. they are where the rubber meets the road in all the elections. we let the county clerks we used the same principle with determine how best to use that money. we had about 27 clerks who went for the voting equipment. we had about an equal number that went towards cyber security. we had 17 or 18 that went toward physical security. each county had their round situation that they wanted to deal with. we pushed that out, the counties

are already using it. one of our larger counties is buying brand-new express vote systems. they're going to be trying that out in the general election. we are moving up in the express vote with modern equipment. election, only 16% of the state was using those. in these -- this election, 43% will be using modern equipment. by 2020, we will be 65%. we are making progress. we could use so much from the federal government. we are appreciative of the money they gave us and we are putting it to good use. for thedoes that mean number of different kinds of voting machines in use across was virginia? do you know how many different kinds of machines are across all of those counties? >> it is mainly to voting machines and paper ballots.

most of the people but 16 years ago. that is starting three's the end of its useful life span. many are moving toward the express vote system or something similar. so we have express vote, vote tronics and vote by paper. host: how many people in west virginia are still voting by paper? >> another county, completely, another county, half and half, and then you have absentee ballots. so it is not a great number but everyone is backed up by ed auditable paper trail. that's a key component in election security. an actual paper ballot. and that's what vote tronics and the express vote systems provide. lars: what is their argument holding onto the vote by paper? >> simply a voter preference.

it is a more senior county, with senior citizens. they have expressed it to the county clerk over and over again. the county clerk has wanted to try the express vote system and over time, we will get there, setting up displays and letting people use it and get comfortable with it. once we get to 50% of the state, the message will be out it but i had lunch with the county clerk this last week, and she reiterated that her voters still want to vote by paper. >> president trump was briefed on election security leading up to the midterms and talked to reporters afterward, saying there well, quote, hopefully be no meddling, no tampering, no nothing. abc news reports fear than half of states have allowed the department of homeland security to test their systems for vulnerabilities. and a statement from the agency released in october, dhs says it has no evidence of any attack on election systems that would

prevent voting, change vote counts or disrupt the ability to count votes. >> sunday, on q&a. >> seven years ago, the people of the united states voted on what they thought was a great liberal campaign. somewhere along the line, we lost the objective. >> david levering lewis on his biography of wendell wilkie. >> he was an internationalist. he was a great civil libertarian. he was a man of civil rights convictions that would've matched on obama, perhaps. liberal man who was a and at the same time accepts -- accessible to the role of government in the economy.

but only to a great degree. i thought all the things about him were appealing. there's a part in the book where we had roosevelt asking him to consider being his vice president. he's going to overthrow henry wallace and he wants somebody new. typical fbi. -- fdr. but he says no. >> q&a on c-span. >> ♪ forhe washington journal november 3, polling leading up to next week's election suggest that young to -- young voters might turnout in significant numbers. what's the driving force for our program today? the youth vote and youth engagement in the midterm elections. elections and we want to hear

from you, especially if you are in the younger ages about the election, who you may vote for come issues you are passionate about, and what you think will happen. who want to of us call and talk about that youth engagement in the midterms, you can do so as well. here is how we broke down the phone lines, between 18-24, 202-748-8000. if you are between 25 and 49, 202-748-8001. if you are over 50 years old, give us a call at 202-748-8002. you can post on our social media site @cspanwj is our twitter feed and facebook page is facebook.com/c-span. page,ng of the facebook the question is posted, chris gave some thoughts saying i turned 30 today am i still in the youth category?

let's say you are today. someone says, when it comes to the youth vote, i am waiting to see it. ages, are in the younger talk about your plans to participate and why you are voting. other people can participate. call the phone lines and our social media sites. a harvard poll, 40% of 18-29-year-olds indicating they are likely to vote this november, up 3% from the 2018 spring pole. interest in voting has increase 44%, -- sorry, 54% of democrats say a high likelihood of voting while 43% of republicans while interest among independent voters, put a 4% has not changed since the spring. that is from a harvard poll.

give us your thoughts on these topics on the phone lines this morning. the numbers are on the screen. during the course of the three hours, we will talk to student journalists from the universities and colleges across the united states about what they see on their campus. joining us now is our first guest, george with the post at ohio university who serves as a news reporter for that publication. good morning. guest: good morning. host: what you see from your publication, how would you gauge interest in the midterm? guest: it is definitely higher than previous years from what i've looked up and researched. host: tell us about the research , what are you seeing specifically on campus? guest: on campus i have seen a lot of different student groups like the call is to mcgrath and college republicans, they have been -- college democrats and

college republicans, they have been reaching out to voters, specifically in athens, ohio, we have seen a rise in registered voters in 2017 and only a couple hundred off from 2016 during the presidential election. host: what do you think is the motivator? what is engaging students this time around? guest: definitely the political climate and the increase in voter engagement from previous years. college students are listening to politics and listening to what our elected officials are doing and what they have to say. host: when it comes to the campus, you talk about college republicans and college democrats doing their part, how does this typically bear out? the registration

wereine, college democrats a lot more involved and trying to get more people registered to vote and after the deadline, both groups are going across different canvases, phone banks, knocking on doors, and in general informing college students and athens residents across the entire state. and making sure they are informed about who is on the ballot and what each party is going to vote for. host: when you talk about the conversations you have seen on campus, would you define it as , how would you categorize it? guest: i would say pretty civil when it comes down to those two groups. the groups like to work together a lot and they are pretty civil and do a lot of talking. when it comes to students in general across ohio university,

they are still civil. we have had a lot of political events, rallies, that deal with specific issues like campus safety, a recent one in the last two days having to do with lgbt writes. and visibility of trans groups and intersex groups. calledcifically, a group expletive f culture. host: as far as issues, are those top issues? how does the economy and student loans go into these decisions? guest: the top few issues college students armored about ,ur college affordability, jobs making sure they can get a job after the graduate, and specific things such as campus safety, health care, things like that. host: how does technology play

into reaching out and efforts among the groups are campus? guest: i would say it is very important because social media in our age is utilized a lot theseeared i realized groups are reaching out in person but also using social media to get people to go out and vote. with the oh-university student senate, they are -- ohio university student senate are actively trying to get people engaged, hosting an event between state representatives. they live streamed it and put it on youtube. host: what position have the university taken when they comes to the election this year? are they urging students are making it easier for them or have they taken a position at all? the side ofare on

making sure students are informed and wanting to get students informed. the university as a whole has not taken a side, they have put an effort, they hosted a congressional debate and i have heard certain organizations are sort of encouraging people to learn what is on the ballot. host: does your publication plan to do something for election night as far as coverage? guest: definitely. we come out with an election issue and we specifically, and other reporters, will be live tweeting. i am the cohost of our political podcast. we are planning on doing a couple of special things, my editor through around the possibility of us live streaming the results through that part just. -- through that podcast. host: what is your major and what are you planning to do?

major is journalism, news and info and i minor in political science. right now, looking for an internship so i can graduate. and get experience in a newsroom. after a graduate, i would love to go into a publication that allows me to write for print journalism or on line journalism , and produce content like that, unlike producing multimedia content, whether through podcasts, social media. host: this is george with the post at ohio university, a news reporter for that publication. where can they find you online? with myhrough twitter ,ame or you can find the post we will keep it updated with our

contact before and after and on election day. host: thank you for your time. guest: thank you. host: he will be one of many reporters we will talk to throughout the morning looking at using gauge meant in kevin call 18-24-year-old 202-748-8000. call025 and 49 your sold, 202-748-8001. over 50-year-old, call 202-748-8002. democrat line, over 50 and over, new jersey. the biggest election of my lifetime. as far as the using gauge meant, hopefully -- the using gauge meant, hopefully -- the youth engagement, hopefully they will tip the scales, they are not as locked in as the old-timers,

why can concerned -- the users to 92 by a gun but why can't they use it as identification to vote -- why can they use their student id to buy a gun but why can't they use it for identification to vote. trump -- no matter what he does, he will have the support, with marion barry, even though they noticed him smoking won thecaine, he still election. host: edward in wisconsin, republican line, over 50 years old. caller: thank you for taking my call. i am very impressed with your program.

i have been watching it quite a few years and have called once or twice. i encourage everybody to vote, everybody who is legal, of all ages should both in this election because it is one of the most important elections in our country. aboutwhat do you think young people as far as their role in the selection -- in this election? say that again? host: when it comes to young people, what about the role they will have in the 2018 midterms? caller: actually, i think they will serve a very important part. it is unfortunate because young people usually are a little more engaged in their life.

i have been in the past and can't understand why some young -- and canshrug off understand why some young people may shrug off voting but i think they will play a big part like other sections will be, male, female, democrat, republican, we all will play a big part. host: let's go to kansas come independent line, mj. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. host: go ahead, you are on. caller: i think the youth will it because it will change america i mean by "it" is imperial trump. host: what are your issues, you're a youth voter, what are your issues? caller: the youth will vote for

"it" because it will make america great again. host: nancy is from kentucky, democrat line, hello. caller: thank you for taking my call. i have already voted. speak beforetrump and -- "washington journal" i sat up straight in the bed, i was feeling so frightened, donald trump said, please tell me if someone else heard this or if they did not, he said he was creating another part of the armed forces. mussoliniso much like and the brownshirts. host: we are talking about youth engagement.