of 2020 elections at federal and levels. the bipartisan policy center event.this >> welcome to the bipartisan policy center. thank you for being here today. i am the director of the thetions project here at bipartisan policy center. the project is very ready for 2020 and it is 293 days away from election day. havingans that iowa is its caucus in 19 days. new hampshire is having their 27 days and super tuesday when 15 states are having their primaries is only 48 days away. what does that mean for election administrators? election ist the here because for those voters who are covered by the uniformed and overseas citizens absentee those ballots have to be in the mail 45 days before the election so starting on be a lot of will ballots out there going to our american citizens overseas. election years for very fun for me. a lot of people who i don't get to often in the year are very interested in the work that i do. it's also the time when everyone expert in elections and have opinions on how to improve the process. unlike how i become during the olympics when i have thoughts about every sport i know nothing about. if you are in the wrong event and you're more interested in starts in 191that days. thank you for coming to today's event. culmination of a year's worth of work for my team bringing together 21 state and local election officials to agree upon logical election policy. what makes our group unique is that it was made up of only and local election officials, the ones who have to implement policy. ideasare a lot of good out there but policy doesn't happen in a vacuum. the greatest policy implemented poorly won't serve voters that well and won't improve the voting experience. really expects that the voting process will be secure, accessible and accurate and individuals have convenient ballots but only those eligible should be able to do so. our elections are complex involving many federal and state election laws, administered by over 8,000 administrators who logistical and scish and everythings in between. our goal is to create a road map understandakers to their options when doing election reform and highlight the upstream and downstream of making changes to policy in one area. the specificleave conversation about recommendations to colin stewart our secondrating panel but while i'm here, i want to take a few minutes to thank made this who possible. certainly all 21 of our task alle members, we appreciate the time they gave to this effort. they attended events in person the country three times last year. i don't know how many times we them on conference calls. a lot. i don't know how many times you with my staff and they all provided their line to the report. i appreciate all of that. team all making absolutely possible. brenna, ourte program associate on our team sure 1/2 years, making everything we want to do can happen. today is brenna's last day which for us but slightly terrifying for me in december ann she told me she had exciting new opportunity because i thought she was leaving then, didn't want her to leave before we got to the design phase. last dayy she made her our event. thank you for everything you've done, brenna. content, while we've spent a lot of time on that, we're very proud of it. it would not look this good without the communications and digital teams. invite congressman davis to give a few remarks. congressman davis was going to on our panel but there was a vote scheduled and he has to do his job. congressmaner to davis. >> hold your applause, please. matt, iu, and appreciate it. i was looking forward to the back-and-forth like we had last year. to hear some questions and be able to respond. i had the opportunity to address about a year ago now and it was a great back-and-forth talking about what we views were, looked forward to addressing when it comes to election reform and election security during congress. really disappointed i don't get a chance to sit with secretary ravensburger and commissioner and eitherthe panel cheerlead what you're doing or like we do in congress, we disagree with you. but i really appreciate the bipartisan policy center for having me back. election policy matters. it doesn't make the front page. 24-hour newshe cycle but since becoming the ranking member of the house administration committee which as many of you know oversees heldal elections, we've three mark-ups for election policies and have had five election-related hearings where we one last week had voting machine c.e.o.'s testify in our committee of nine. house administration, i think it's very important. but we have nine members on that ammittee and it's become committee that's become more of a legislative committee this has ins more so than it its existence. i introduced two election thisity bills over congress, hr-3412, the election act and assistance hr3736, honest elections act, addressing some of the types of interference we saw in 2016 and also focusing on assisting states like georgia and others, my own state of election bolster their security measures, too. we think they're good bills. we think they ought to be able to get a fair hearing. some positive things we've already done, they recently passed national defense reauthorization act, ndaa, we've included many election security provisions that were asked for offolks like our secretaries state, by folks that are in charge at the eac like the implementingin changes to ensure that our election system's more secure. we will make sure that we have better interoperability to andide state, local national officials with instances of possible intrusion. communication matters. one of the big things that we can do here in washington is to that all three levels of government talk to each other and make sure it's not just about money but make sure that goes to areas that we're really going to see real results areas in's not many government that have seen such bipartisan cooperation at all levels to address a problem that existed in 2016. that's great. we want to continue to allow that to happen. those are our priorities. ton'sare chair laugh proirts and should be america's priorities. we also, republicans and to give $425rk million in grants to states in order to secure their elections. spend it wisely. we see cooperation in a city that is not known right now when tv for any type of cooperation whatsoever. thiss are happening in arena that should be touted and likes what i think a group yours, bipartisan policy center, you recommended that states electionningful reform. we're helping them to do that, we believe. and that's a direct result, i think, of efforts by groups like yours to make sure this was an with increased scrutiny and we also wanted to make sure that we highlight what we've that has worked. remember we had historic turnout elections inm 2018. anybody hear of any instances of intrusion? i see none. i'm going to take that as a no. but that should be celebrated. we should be talking a little bit more about what we're doing this field instead of always going back to instances a 2016 where we know we had problem but we worked together to help correct those problems. the secretaries of state can you that it. our local election officials can tell you that. entrusted toeen ensure that those efforts continue to move forward. things that we should be talking about in washington but instead we're talking about other issues that are much more partisan. year our committee marked up three bills. remember, i said we have nine congress on the house administration committee. i'm the lead republican on the smallest committee in congress. i have three republicans on that committee, in the minority. major election bills marked up through that committee. 600-plus-page amendment to hr-1. while there were good things in all of these bills, there were major areas that i disagreed with so those are as wethat i think we can, move together, we've got to figure out which areas of those major pieces of legislation the democrats tried to ram through, our small committee, and had a each of them on the floor of the house. we ought to be able to come together and get things done in we agree with and that's why i'm glad to be here and working with folks like the commissioner,the too. elections, very much so, that's our goal. we're getting secure elections. look at 2018. look at the investments we've made. these things matter and that's as we're going to continue we move forward, we have some ideas where i think we can work and we need to help with the b.p.c. to make that and also the secretaries of state, too. make sure you tell secretary larose i said that. we got to reform hava. since thatince 2002 bill was implemented. we have so many more issues not securityhe election arena but the election technology arena that we've got be able in a bipartisan way thepdate hava so commissioners can get the funds out to secretaries of state, state boards of elections in the and locallinois election officials so let's work together. we need your help helping us hava. reform of we also need to look at securing in electionvoting methods. centralized voter registration databases. securityams and the protocols that we make our election voting machine vendors through the standards administered through the eas don't apply to voter registration databases. as we know, as we move into the e-poll we'll have more books, more electronic technology at the voter registration portion. maybe we start to look at putting together some guidelines our voter registration databases will have to follow. in 2016s the intrusion in illinois? was it at christian county, illinois, electronic voting machine with a paper backup? the russians hack into that? no but the russians did try to hack into our state board of elections voter file, our for voterdatabase registration. that tells me we've got to do something better because if haves an area that doesn't as much scrutiny, maybe that's where government can come in as republicans and democrats and things done. we're doing things right in illinois, too. just last week, you know, being the committee, even though it's a small committee, i get a chance to choose some witnesses once in a while with hearings and i had a chance to pick a witness to come and the election vendor hearing and i chose my home local electiony official. he's a democrat. i'm a republican. don't choose democrats to sit in their witnesses, right? if you turn on tv, you would expect that to happen but i did because you know why? janaze because i grew up with him and went to school with him and i know there is nobody in my home county that wants to run a more fair and faster election process than mike janaze. he's my friend. job.doing a good our local election officials aren't partisan. election officials shouldn't be partisan. our local election officials does, care, like mike about getting elections that are fair, getting elections that make sure people don't have to wait in lines and making sure that technology works. theipartisan support at levelsstate and federal is essential for mike to be able to do his job but illinois has a cyber navigator program making sure that we have policies in local officials know that if they think there's an intrusion on their voter system or by chance maybe an election machine, they call.ho to simple things like this in washington can be done to make our local election officials are able to do their job. i think a national initiative mirroring illinois' campaign could be something we could have on so we stopport cyber threats before they get to and look at the end of the day our federal government and our role in government is to ensure the states have every resource possible to run their elections. an area that i think we're going to continue over the next congress and the next few think the rest of this can, to continue to push forward. i'm glad election security is scrutiny because it gives us a chance to make things better and i look forward to working with each and every one of you. sorry i can't answer your questions. that dastardly thing called job and going to vote, i got to do. thanks, everyone. and good luck. [applause] matt: so our first panel is entitled defending elections at state and local level, state and federal level, but it's broader than that. have ay want to conversation about, today, still worry, ispic, don't broader. it's more how can the federal elections,help state what do states need, what do localities need, where are their advantages, where are we not being the most efficient. met congressman rodney davis who was here. hubland was ben nominated by president trump and confirmed by unanimous consent eac in 2019. is currently vice chair, soon to be chair of the commission in february likely. on it but vote likely. and he serves as designated federal officer for the technical guidelines development committee which helps to create voting system guidelines. ben has been in and around years, recently serving as acting chief counsel senate committee on rules and administration, driving force behind getting $380 million to the states, a driving force. earlier in his career he served deputy general counsel for the missouri secretary of state's office, focused on administration, training,polling statewide database matching, and ballot initiative litigation. served as an attorney for the fair elections legal network. welcome, ben. >> thank you. him, georgia secretary of state brad rassenburger, c.e.o. and owner of tendon systems, a specialty and designgineering firm with nearly 200 employees. theas served two terms in georgia general assembly from 2015 to 2019 and elected in 2018. of state welcome to you, as well. >> thank you. ist: the first question quite broad and i'd like your initial thoughts and then narrow it down. role --the appropriate in elections. i'm going to ask you first. the realk one of challenges in elections and particularly for people who then't really worked in space is figuring out that balance. as you mentioned in my biography, i'm privileged to have worked at various levels. i still haven't done local, should, but i worked at the missouri secretary of had thatffice so have viewpoint. i worked at the senate to have perspective and now in an administrative what i'vet the eac, seen over that time is finding where i think you traditional see in federal legislation tends to be floors but it really leaves the states laboratories of literal democracy and you see great innovation in the states ensureink where we can that people have the right to vote, that they're able to vote, flexibility for the states to innovate is really that we've seen work in a lot of places. sameew: secretary, question. >> i think the federal government brings some resources the state level and the capacity, one of those being cyber, from foreign actors in particular because they have lots of resources. that's important for us. standard fora testing of new voting equipment so we have a common standard gives votersreally a sense of calm, peace that it's been tested and there's a that systems have and so i think those are two areas very at the federal level, you can help assist the states but at the end of the elections bubble up at the precinct level to the county level to the state level and i the appropriate form that we've had for 200 and some odd years and i think we continue on. matthew: you mentioned voting systems. commissioner helping serve as liaison to the gdc. concerns aboutre voting systems in the public. usability, security. we know that in many states they'll be using new voting this time compared to 2018 or 2016. how do you assess where we are go andwhere we need to how we're going to get there? long do we have? there's a lot to unpack there secretaryhink as the said, some of the work at the eac on the voluntary voting system guidelines, i really do think there is a natural benefit scale to having a federal program. there be 50 different voting certification programs? that doesn't make sense for the states. that would be costly for them. that doesn't make sense for vendors. programave to have a that works and as you know, we've had a history that has but i think we are on the way up and i think we are vbsg 2.0 ande hopefully that will be done soon. i think what that is really about is ensuring that the next generation of election equipment we build and that program around that that really is focused on customer service and good governance and being a resource and a value add to the space and i think doing that ensures that election systems continue to improve going forward. matthew: secretary, georgia is one of those states with a new voting system. how did you settle on what you did and what are you looking for in 2020? we are going through our second statewide implementation. 2002 whenone was in we made the decision, the general assembly, that we'd have system throughout the state. that was a d.r.e. system that has aged out so we're implementing a new system with touch screen technology, ballot with a verifiable paper ballot trail so we'll have 33, 100lemented state.s throughout the we have 159 counties for the march 24 presidential preference primary. we're moving fast. list, the fastest implementation that's occurred in this country. matthew: one of the things that congressman davis mentioned was $425 million appropriated at the end of last year for the states. $380 million, you were one of the driving forces behind in 2018. that's $805ation, million that the federal government is providing to states. when i've talked to state and local election officials, i think they are looking for on how to spend it well, how to spend it quickly so it be impactful for 2020. what does success look like when thismes to how to spend federal money well, be good stewards of the taxpayers' money elections going forward? >> absolutely. with a little bit of my former talk more about the 2018 money but, again, the looks a lot like the reason that congress provided so is because each state does look so different and soh jurisdiction does look different so when you're looking at increasing security, those needs really vary. some states we've seen replace paperless equipment. other states and paperless equipment. other states, we have seen them replace their state wide voter registration database. congressman davis mentioned the cyber navigator program. these are one of the best things to help provide the technical expertise a lot of the jurisdictions do not have the resources or capacity to have. i think that has been a great model. i think with the 425 plan dollars, for certain states like in illinois, backing up the 2018 money. some states have budgeted out five years of programs, which is logical. we are going to get the 2020 money out the door quickly. for states who had budgeted out the five years knowing more money was coming, they can start spending what they had immediately. the reality is where we are in the cycle. there is only certain things you are able to do. -- ich of this is about think of elections as an infrastructure. it is building in the process and the strength in the long-term. they cannot be just about the long term. building systems that are strong enough moving forward. matthew: one of the things that was different about the 2020 appropriation and the 2018 appropriation was a significant rise in state match. the states are going to have to put up more money to access the federal funds. how does that impact how quickly you can get out the door? what you plan on doing with the money once you have it? secretary raffensperger: was said to everyone that security is our number one goal. therstand how important voter database is. we are going to be looking at what we can do to strengthen that. we have a new system coming up. we will be doing a lot of social media videos. georgia public television has done a video. we are going to be looking at, how do we help voters and get them prepared? it is a new system. it is similar but different. we want people to have a great experience. the whole idea when you show up to vote, we do not like lines. voters do not like lines. we want to help voters navigate so they understand what the process is. after they have made the selections, press the button, they have not voted until they dropped the ballot into the scanner. so people have fun with it. it should be a great day. it should not be misery. it should be fun. matthew: one of the other complaints we have heard is that it is not getting down to the election spheres. -- beates be doing that doing to ensure it is getting to the local sphere? commissioner hovland: we have heard that from a number of jurisdictions and states. some of that depends on what the needs were. new statewidea voter registration database, we saw that was where a lot of focus of 2018 activity was. that was something that benefits the entire state. we did see some states that passed most of the money down. we have seen states that kept most of it up top. with the additional 20 20 money, it will be interesting to see -- if you had an initial investment in a statewide voter registration database, maybe you are in a position to award more local grants. we are hopeful to see that. matthew: what is happening in one state certainly impacts what is happening in every other state. you go back 20 or 30 years, maybe states could run their own elections separately. the monitor has been, we do not want to be the next -- the mantra has been, we do not want to be the next florida. voters hear stories. what they are hearing is different from what is happening in their states. you have lung deadlines for certification of results. ofeads to a lot miscommunication among voters. what can the federal and state officials, particularly secretaries of state, do to make sure there voters are getting clean and accurate information quickly during a fast-paced media environment around elections? secretary raffensperger: for us, we are upgrading our equipment. we are expecting to get election results on election night a lot faster because of better technology. we were using equipment that is 18 years old. we are excited we are going to be upgrading to something that is a lot more modern. we are going to get faster results. we are going to be establishing to do risk limiting audits as part of the process. people at the end of the day, i understand that things are contentious at times. we want people to be confident that election results are accurate. if you have the confidence results are accurate, that is what we are called to do as election officials. commissioner hovland: the secretaries are involved in a infoctive effort, trusted 2020. it is a great effort to drive voters towards the trusted source of information, which is state and local election officials. we at the election assistance commission have partnered with gsa on vote.gov. we are looking to enhance that. have government sources state local sources where people can go. that is a big piece of it. for voters, engaging arley. checking their voter -- engaging arley. checking their voter registration. i would hate to miss an opportunity to give a plug for being a poll worker. it is a great experience. that maybe once a little more confidence in the process, actually being a part of it, see all of the checks and double checks that go into it. see all of the pieces that go into making election day great. been one of the more valuable experiences i have had. it is a long day. but it is worthwhile. matthew: i will warn everybody. until i am minutes going to turn to your questions. for those five minutes you will be thing about your questions, i want ask two questions to you. you are both coming to this from different perspectives. you are an elected official. you have been here for 20 years as a lawyer. what are the positive stories that are not being told the voters do not understand? the flipside of that, going into 2020, what isto keeping you up at night? secretary raffensperger: many people do not realize we have a great story to tell. we are one of the first states to do online voter registration. we also have what is called opt out. when you get your drivers license, you will be registered to vote. this year, we will have 7 million people registered to vote in our state. we expect 5 million voters this year. we have a great story to to. we have new voting systems being implemented. we also have at our county level, what i call personal integrity. county election officials want to get it right. they just want to do their job. they do not want to be on the evening news. they are working hard to make sure we have accurate elections. that is all we can ask of election officials. commissioner hovland: one of the real privileges i have is i get to travel around the country and see how folks are administering elections. the work they have been putting in. it is truly awesome. should just take a video camera around. i could produce a documentary no one would watch. it would undoubtedly give anyone who watched it a lot of confidence. it is amazing to give -- to see the work state and local officials have been putting in. it should give voters confidence. as far as what keeps me up at night, i have a two-year-old who does not sleep as much as i would like him to. when i am awake, i think about what his democracy will look like in the future. the thing that worries me is that people do lose confidence. for the most part, the average american just wants to show up and vote for the candidate of their choice and believe it will be counted as they intended it to be. i am fully confident that will happen. i know i have been at conferences with cybersecurity experts. they have talked about the various vulnerabilities in our system. all computers have vulnerabilities. there is so much of that that has been mitigated. there are so many of the threats that have been addressed. they have confidence in the process. that is important for americans to know. if they want a little more, they should consider being a poll worker. matthew: anything keeping you up at night? secretary raffensperger: cybersecurity, the back office. we know hackers do not sleep. we need our eight hours. those eight hours we are sleeping, we wonder what they are doing in their parents basement or wherever they are. we do not know where they are going to come from. that is what keeps us up. matthew: microphones in the auditorium. if you have questions, please find one of those. right there. >> hi, thanks. this question is for the secretary of state. when you guys going to announce the conclusion of your investigation into whether or not your statewide data system was hacked in 2016? i know you have been working on that for a well. secretary raffensperger: well it was not hacked. it was not hacked. there has never been from our there wereng, attempted penetrations in florida and illinois, but our system was not hacked. >> but there is an ongoing internal investigation. secretary raffensperger: some of that is litigation. on the litigation part, we cannot comment. >> obviously with the new system, there are concerns and complications. i know there is a lot of litigation flying around your state when you guys going to issue the rules of the road for auditing 2020 in case there are any issues? secretary raffensperger: the way house bill 316 was written in the general assembly, this year, the audit process is a pilot audit. we have already began risk limiting audits for the mean support elections in the fall. that is the process we have started with. we had several officials that went up to virginia and observed their process. we have implemented many of those measures. we have already had a task force around audits and what that process will be. we will have that defined. will be codifying that in the state election board meetings next year. this year, our big lift will be having statewide mentation of the new system and doing audits -- statewide implementation of the new system. we want to implement that as soon as possible. colorado began their process in 2010. they kept on adding additional counties. we would do it faster than colorado because we can learn from states that are ahead of us on this. we endorse a culture of auditing, which we talk about in our second panel. i want to make sure we have time for other questions as well. secretary, chairman our vice -- chairman or vice chair vland talked about being involved. havetary raffensperger: we a program in georgia. it is the student ambassadors program. it is to encourage high school students engaged in the process. you can become a poll worker in georgia if you are 16 or older. we want students to become involved. with the new systems, and ipad is part of the electronic poll book. we think it is really neat could rethink students will appreciate that. -- is really neat. we think students will appreciate that. we have had in the past, two programs in this event area and in forsyth county to encourage people to come out and be poll workers. we would love to encourage more people to become poll workers. it is going to be a big turnout, so we are going to need more coworkers than in the past. thank you for your question. >> you referenced 18-year-old election systems as being outdated. what is the average life expectancy when you purchase an election system? >> life expectancy are what it should be or how it is used? -- todayalked about has been the $380 million from fy 18 and the $425 million. part of the reason that money has been so important is the underfunding of elections. -- thethe help of erica help america vote act. you had the nationwide equipment. that was the first time you had that broad scale equipment change across the country. we have seen a lot of that equipment start to age out or be replaced. one of the things that is really challenging is you have jurisdictions that have had to patch that equipment together or find spare parts where they can because they do not have the funding to replace it in the most timely manner. is, you hearf that people talk about we need a whole of government approach for cybersecurity and election cybersecurity. i also think it is important to talk about a whole of government approach in finding elections. state and local election officials absolutely run elections and should be responsible for paying for it, but there is a pedro -- there is a federal portion of the ballot. funding out how to best elections will change the realisticor what is to expect out of your election equipment going forward. secretary raffensperger: your question with our new system, one advantage we have with the new system as we are going to start at the front end. it is an ipad. as apple will start with the software, we are going to get those upgrades. if the ipad falls apart, we can replace it. it is almost like plug-and-play by piece. you come to the ballot marking device, that is on windows 10. if we end up with 11 or 13 software upgrades, we will incorporate that should with the printer, -- incorporate that. with the printer, it is a hewlett packer printer. it is something you could buy at a local office store. it will be an upgrade to the printers. the ballot scanner, the same idea. it is not the whole system you have to replace. the software as we move through the system will be an upgrade. the voter database on the backside, we want to make sure we continue to strengthen that and make sure that stays current and update that going forward. we will not end up in that situation. inwill see where we end up 2025 and 2030. we incorporate that. -- we will look at how we incorporate that. >> mention was made of a program that voters can access to get accurate information about election and about candidates. what role if any can state election officials and the federal government play in countering misinformation put out over social media, especially about candidates? commissioner hovland: to be responsible to my jurisdiction issues, candidates are a bit outside of my purview, but i -- one, the way you see some of these foreign adversaries acting is mimicking certain traditional divides or weighs that voter suppression efforts have been happening. we see efforts to potentially talk about, certain people vote on wednesday or a day that is not appropriate. educating voters to know where that trusted source of information is. know who their state election official is. know who their local election official is. ensuring their ability to participate in the process is there. make sure they know when their registration deadline is. if they have an early vote. period, theyote know when that is. already centralized system is great in a lot of ways, but one of those areas we can improve is in communication and ensuring more people know the right place to get the information about how to participate. matthew: time for one last question. secretary raffensperger: i was just going to answer, when one candidate is throwing mud at the other candidate, our job is just to administer the election process. that is the job of the political consultants on both sides. i have been in several runoffs. i get that. i'm never called and asked for help. that is not our role. our role is to make sure we have accurate elections. do candidate's job is to whatever they can do to get elected i guess. it would be nice if we can elevate the level of civil discourse in this country. a question right here. >> i am a retired member of the foreign service. to what degree are you stations aspolling far as the number and location in the state or in the county or jurisdiction so that all members eligible to vote have adequate opportunity to vote? secretary raffensperger: in the state of georgia, we have put out to our election officials, police expect 5 million people to come out and vote. expect numbers. i am an engineer, so i start running numbers. if you have this many people in precinct and look at how many people can move through the line, you better make sure you have enough machines to handle that. you may need to redeploy people in your county. we decreased in our purchase by 10%. every county will have enough machines. it is the county officials who have to make sure they are deployed. we need to plan so we have uniformed line flow. i guess i am good at that because i am an engineer. we are trying to help the election officials administer as best we can. matthew: a great way for us to highlight the work in polling place lines. we got the report last year. we have some work on that as well. thank you for being on the panel. i'm going to call the second panel. [applause] >> this is an exciting day. there is the tire and he -- the tyranny of the time. i am charles stuart. with three experts who i will be introducing in a second is going to be focusing on the report released today by the bpce. it highlights some of the proposals in that report. i will introduced the panel in second. a few things to introduce the panel. the first thing about the report is that it does help to illustrate how while there has been great strides in improving election administration since the president's commission on election and decade before, there is always room for improvement. increasingly, there is a sense of continual improvement in elections. i think that is a reflection of the report. thereport also demonstrates information and insight that america's election administrators have two of her. it is reflected in the report and the people on the stage and body that personally. another point i will make, when you look at the report, there are 21 recommendations. we do not have time to talk about all the recommendations. panelists -- the panelists will highlight a few of the recommendations. there are other things they can talk about. with that in mind, that may say a word about who is up on stage. immediately to my left is mandy, who is the ohio director of elections and the assistant secretary of the state. choate.eft is judd should we let loose about the order of the panel? let's not. is the supervisor of elections for pascoe county, florida. chris thomas, the youngest member of the panel, is a fellow and served 36 years as michigan's director of elections. we will go down the line. mandy, i know had some things to highlight about eric and maintenance. >> it is great to be here. it is fantastic to be here in representing ohio and the secretary of state. a member of eric for a while. it stands for the electronic registration and information center. for therecommendation task force report. we are proud members of eric. eric member states, of which there are 30 members. ofstates and the district columbia. the recommendation is that all states should join eric for secure data sharing and maintenance. it is a fantastic organization that is led by wonderful people. georgia recently joined. we are grateful to have them. florida is another notable state that joined. kentucky and vermont as well. ohio uses eric in the secure transfer and sharing of data to do many things. secretary larose is very passionate about maximizing ohio's access and data sharing. one of the ways we plan to do so is increasing our eligible but unregistered mailing frequencies. sharing data is with other states to identify the list of folks in your state who are of eligible voting age or unregistered to vote. sending them a postcard and saying, we noticed you are on -- you are eligible to vote, you are unregistered. andt ohio -- visit vote.gov register to vote in ohio. we are fully on board with the task force registration. just a few stats to share from eric. the total voting eligible population of eric amber states is 127.5 million. states is 125 -- 127.5 million. way to identify folks. it is a great way to increase civic engagement and engage with the voting population. we are thrilled about the task force recommendation. maintenance can be a political thing. that is why we love the bpce and the task force recommendation, because of the polarization we are in right now. .t is great to sit next to judd it is great to interact with secretaries of state and election directors of different political affiliations to do what is best for the boater. that is something that secretary -- for the vote her. that is something that secretary larose is passionate about. ultimately, our process was upheld by the u.s. supreme court. secretary larose settled that case in 2018. if any of you find frank larose on twitter or instagram and watch the video of andre washington, the ohio president of the a philip randolph institute, the entity that originally sued the previous administration, thanking secretary larose for his work in analyst maintenance and doing the right thing and moving forward in a bipartisan way. if it does not bring you to tears, it will bring you close to tears. , last yearwill say in 2019, the previous administration in 2015 had ohio is our what in clock of cancellations. what secretary larose update was unprecedentedly transparent. he actually published the list of those individuals who were said to be canceled. withwe did is he worked the ohio leak of women voters -- voters, tof women get them right is dirt in that process. -- to get them registered in that process. we hope it serves as a nationwide leader. our friends in georgia did the same thing with their maintenance process as well. we are proud of our transparent efforts to get as many people in ohio registered as possible. judd from colorado, your state has already been invoked. the colorado way involves mail in ballots. there are number of reports toudd related to that. j -- related to that. process and the bbc developed. that is that there are democrats and republicans on this stage. there are people with a lot of. there are people with less experience and more rural and urban states. states that have the eastern which -- eastern model, is based more on polling places. the western model is based on vote at home. we were able to come up with 30 plus recommendations we could all agree to. everyone could buy into those recommendations. that is an amazing thing. congressslatures, the should recognize these are all things we can all get behind. a couple of the things that stood out to me involve vote by mail. colorado is a state where we send every active voter a mail ballot. election.ior to the we figure that is an easier way to transmit that ballot to our voters and by having them get into the car and coming to see us. we are willing to put into an envelope and send that she you -- send that to you. the recommendation is that all states allow a voter to sign up for a mail ballot. they should be able to receive that prior to the election and that should be a seamless process. there are some recommendations to that. if you want to get a mail ballot and signed up for multiple elections at a time, you should be able to do that. in colorado, it is permanent. we do it for all of our active voters. if youer part of that is are in a state where people are getting their ballot by mail and a lot of voters voting with those mail ballots, you should provide opportunities for those motors to hand off the ballot in an easy way. the easiest way to do that is to have drop boxes throughout your state. you can drop them in a local way and not have to go stand in line and go to a boat center or paul vote center. washington and oregon have these long-standing vote by mail policies. they have the drop boxes. it leads to more voter engagement across more elections. maybe some of the low interest elections generate more interest when you hand a ballot to them. it is a good policy and one we could all agree on. the other thing is risk limiting audits. risk limiting audits in colorado. weery good policy, a policy could all get around as a bipartisan policy center with this group was to audit your election results. there are various ways you can do that. at the very basic, you should be doing something to show that you have taken it upon yourself to make sure the outcome you have -- producedhes matches the will of the voters. you can do that through one of the many auditing procedures. we have developed risk limiting audits. it is a long process. there was a big rollout. it is not something that realistically, a state could go and say i want to do risk limiting audits and six months later do them. that is not real estate. if you employ the strategy and research strategies, you could rule out some sort of procedure. a sub point to that is you should be doing audits before you certify results. if you certify results and then you do an audit and you find there was a problem, you have put the wrong people in office. long-term significant problem you're going to have to be in court about. might have the wrong people in elected offices. you should be doing those procedures before you certify outcomes, which in many states would require changes in law. those are two important areas in which the bipartisan policy center and the group of people we brought together to do the recommendations identified very good recommendations. been an brian, you have advocate for harnessing technology and improving elections. there are some things that you have to say. thank i would like to matt for invoking florida earlier. davis said it best when he said that election policy matters. that is a logical leap to the bipartisan policy center. of a spectrum of political ideologies and geographic and different approaches. they came together and came up with a bipartisan approach. and regards to the process harnessing technology, it is important we never lose sight. the most important stakeholder is the voters. we must keep that in mind whenever we are discussing. with regards to harnessing technology, it is a necessity. we look at where we are as a society, i often tell groups a fee think about it, the smartphone is a thousand times more powerful than what we use the moon.on you can harness that technology to make better election administration. woulduld have thought we have in good chunk of our nation, online registration. i tell my daughter that her fellow sailors can register to vote on her ship in the south china sea chain electronic poll -- the south china sea. we have come a long way from hanging chads. part of eric. the electronic aspect of data swaps. it is a great resource for voters, perspective voters, to do things like find out who their elected officials are. that information is powerful. it allows them to check the status of their absentee or vote by mail ballot. they can opt in by text alerts. whereiver there -- for their ballot is located. social media gets a bad rap. the internet has brought us together, but social media is telling -- is tearing us apart. it is a great tool to disseminate information to your stakeholders. certainly, sometimes sadly, refute information and disinformation. that is going to be a huge issue 2020. it is a great opportunity to use that technology to reach out to voters and stakeholders. i would be remiss not to mention the 800 pound gorilla. when you talk about things such as electronic poll books, having a backup register in the event of a power issue. having a robust cybersecurity plan to protect your platform and photo registration as well. thats such as having continuation of operations plan. it is wonderful to harness technology, but you have to have a plan b, plan c, and plan d. charles: chris, you spend a lot of time in michigan. michigan is known for pioneering and automating voter registration. recommendations in the report touch on that. thatan say things about recommendation from your deep well of experience. chris: it is a pleasure to be here. bpc for pulling together election officials. this is a report by election officials that is voter centric. there was a time if you put that many election officials together, you would have an election officials' view of the world. election officials today are very voter centric chain -- are very voter centric, which is where they need to be. i will move right along. 1990's, the national voter registration act was passed. the department of motor vehicles and social service agencies would give opportunities to register to vote. 44 states recovery. the remaining states had election day registration, so they were exempt. the commission on election registration in 2014 concluded it was poorly performing up to the expectations that were out there. most states were well below 50% of the transactions. coming from the dmv's, which is a place everyone comes to for ids, drivers licenses and social service necessities. there has been a lot of work in various states dealing with how to improve that. before, went to a dmv it was an opt in. you want to register? the numbers were so low. why was that? in many cases, you never got asked. in other cases, you had been there long enough that standing around to fill another form was not on your agenda. our recommendation deals with opt out. you are registered unless you opt out. that is the big change we are looking at. it is called automatic voter registration. it is not automatic. if you do not opt out, you are in. election officials are not going to add you to the file until they have taken the various steps to accept her citizenship, residency and age for example. there are two types. our preferred type is the front end. at the point of service, you have the opportunity to opt out. at the same time, you can add your political party preference and whatnot if your state requires that. the other is a back end. you go through. you are put on the list. this is communicated to a local election official who gives you an opportunity to opt out and add your political party. most people do not respond to those types of notices. ist a few states are doing they are finding very few people are selecting a political party through that system, which is going to be an issue when they get to a partisan primary. with this, the full spirit of the and dra is arising. we are seeing some incredible numbers in the election assistance commission eaves reports. few that ie you a think we'll underline the importance of this program. at the 2014 series, which is two years. and the 2018, which is 2017 2018. adopted an opt out and doubled the transactions coming from their dmv's. oregon, vermont, alaska and georgia. four times the number of transactions coming from the dmv's. an incredible amount of data, which lives up to what the end dra was intended to do. i will give a shout out to georgia. transactions in 2014 cycle. million.18 cycle, 3.5 that will give you an idea of how many people are being placed on the roles in all of the states that have adopted the opt out system. what this does, it is not only put people on. it keeps them on. move, which 25% of the people do every year, they are retained on file. that takes care of a major maintenance issue. you move from one place, they transfer you right over so you are not going through notices and whatnot. i would say probably the most incredible thing here is the amount of people that are added to the files who will be in position to vote if they choose to. charles: thanks a lot, chris. i think you all get a sense about the quality of the recommendations in the report. we have time for questions. get ready to ask them. we will do the same as before. i would like you to raise your hands. we have a couple people with microphones to bring them to you. please identify yourself. that was a good thing that happened the previous session. ask a real question. yes. in the front. >> department of labor employee. about the colorado system, i had two quick sessions -- two quick questions. mi correct that mail balloting is the only way to vote? ok. and then, the drop boxes. where are they? what is the security? >> colorado we like to say as the burger king model. do it your way. it is a buffet of options. priorl a ballot 22 days to the election. we open vote centers 15 days prior to the election. there are vote centers in every county. vote centers are based on population. there is a formula and a set of days. as you approach the election, counties have to employee more and more vote centers. though we are handing you a ballot ahead of time, we are providing you the back end opportunities. the question -- second question was the drop boxes. under state law, you have to have a certain number of drop boxes based on population. we require drop boxes based on college campuses. and on indian reservations. we have two indian reservations in colorado. they are required to have drop boxes as well. the dropbox formula. in burke county, 40 plus drop boxes. el paso county, arapahoe county, adams county, have 20, 30, 40 drop boxes. will have small counties with less population, which might have one or two. >> where are they? ontypically, they are government facilities or government land. they tend to be outside of libraries or recreation centers or sheriffs offices or postal offices. under state law, they are required to be under 24 hour, seven days a week, we hundred 65 days a year security. images -- 45 days prior to an election, becomes an election record. you have to hold that for 25 months. on occasion, that does become amething that ends up in court case after an election. they want to make sure it nothing did happen or something did happen at a particular dropbox. charles: let's move on. the fellow in the yellow shirt in the back. follow-up questions for colorado. is colorado a postmark state? do you allow ballot harvesting like california? how does it work for a primary? >> let me see if i can get these. hand state. the thinking is, we do not want to have a gap in time where we are not comfortable -- we are not confident about who won the elections. we want to be able to identify our winners right away. in hand means we have some election official in the state has to have the ballots by 7:00 p.m. on election day as opposed to a postmark, which may extend the window of time in which the ballot could come in. that is one thing. i am not going to remember your other questions. ballot harvesting in colorado, we allow somebody to bring in as many as five ballots. that is been me in my wife's ballot. we have an 18-year-old. i might bring in her ballot. ballots bigger group of you could bring in. we changed that in state law. the last question? we have a pseudo-open primary. is way our primary works and if you are unaffiliated -- our primary works is if you are unaffiliated, we are going to send you a democratic and republican ballot. you get to choose which one you vote. if you return them both, that is fine. if they are both voted, we have to spoil both of them. ourthinking being, we want unaffiliated voters to have some say in who will be the general election candidates. if you are affiliated, you have to change your affiliation 29 days or more prior to the election to be able to vote in the other side. if you're a democrat, you have to change prior to the election to vote as a republican. if you come in and affiliated, we will give you either ballot you want. >> it follows up a little bit. i am happy to have others comment on it. i serve on the advisory council of the election reformers network. it is about postmark balloting. we will call california and arizona having late results. what is the thinking about how that changes, what needs to be done so those problems are minimized? any others can comment on that. >> all of the states here have issues related to this. >> i will start with mine. we are concerned about that because it is a legitimacy question. we want to make sure the people and around the country and the world understand the person who has been elected for a given office has been legitimately elected. i'm going to off script a little bit and say, we are concerned about elected officials around the country and prominent national officials who discount the legitimacy of elections because it takes a wild to do that process. elections do not happen on a day. they have been over the course of time. there is a gap in time between election day and when you can certify an election. it is important for people to understand that. we like to tighten that as much as we can. that means not allowing for postmarks but in hand. runsorida essentially three elections. ail election. in moreyour experience of a traditional state? in hand by 7:00 p.m. on election day. the biggest issue we see with educating voters is a delay. we try to educate our voters. we find analysis, vast majority of those that arrive after 7:00 p.m. on election day often times were put on the mail the day before election day. you cannot put it in your mailbox at noon on election day postmark,opposed to but it would take a change in our state constitution. we have a short timeline and a to certify our elections. ballots 40 days in advance. there is plenty time to mail it. -- contrary to what you may read about, it is not an issue frankly. both in hand and postmark. of the many issues that exist in elections, that is not one of them in ohio. >> we found one. there is a question over here. i will go to this side next. >> there is a concern after 2016, some of what we sow with attempts at hacking election systems, a couple folks were talking about audits. can you talk about how that could alleviate those concerns and states and localities that do not have audits set up for 2020 and what could that mean? >> absolutely. we actually -- secretary lareau has helped introduce in our signed into law the frequency of audits that need to be done. , also in that bill is the ability to perform a risk limiting audit here we are increasing the types of audits that can be done at the local level. iz in her dean -- and her team did several pilots. we actually came up for our local counties a template press release for them to engage with folks like you to legitimize the results of the election and say, hey, media, we did an audit. please publish that. we have had a good relationship with our media to publicize the results. it is one thing to say you did a. it is another to show the work if that makes sense. in ohio, we are proud of that. it has gotten great results. >> audits are essential. you must do an audit. if your stay is not doing an audit, there is still an opportunity for you to do one. you have to pass a law or do a lot of work right away, or there is a great alternative, which is what maryland does. after an election, you can rerun your ballots with a different system. look at the images. you get a picture image of each ballot. put that stuff online. it people look to see, do believe in the outcome? i can do my own account if i want to. auditing and election is essential for voter confidence. i think every state should do it. fun like florida and recounts. if you ever want to have a audit on steroids, do three recounts. you're looking at every over vote and under vote in the entire state. it solidified the results. you are doing testing on those machines as well. it is a necessity. in to then has jumped risk imaging audit. our challenge is we are a home rules state. do not have the benefit of mail ballots were at the end of the night, they are nicely stacked. you come into to do the audit, it is real easy to find. when they are distributed in that istabulator bins, a lot more difficult. are performance audits. those need to be done over a myriad of detailed requirements to make sure election officials are doubting the eyes and crossing the t's. add, we spend a lot of time on issues of reporting. one of the things the report tried to do was think about the effect of recommendations. we'll find in the report on the recommendation that states do more sophisticated statistical audits but think about the certification. and think about -- the certification periods. it is not that you flip a switch and do auditing. you have to think comprehensively about how you do elections from casting the ballots to certifying. that is not going to happen overnight. i think we have time for one question. going. if not, i think matt -- we do have one. sorry, matt. >> tim harper. one thing i think is important to discuss is, there are important upstream and downstream effects making modifications to elections that means the time frames for how things happen are the effects have. can you talk a little about the ways in which the reforms in this package are structured or if there is a reform early in this process, does that mean for one certification happens? -- what does that mean for when certification happens? one thing i would say is, you have to think a less tickly about what you are tracked -- you have to think holistically about what you are trying to employ. we should really employ an earlier voter registration deadline. should try to go with mail ballots. ok. if you have an earlier voter registration deadline, colorado has same day registration. how is that going to work? if somebody adjusters to vote the day before election or on the day, i cannot mail them a ballot. if you register inside eight days, great. come on in. we'll give you ballot. come by a polling place not. problem. he problem though, is we can't mail you one. and even if it does get to you, it can want get turned around and get to us. ou have to think ain't wholistically. >> i would add the election calendar for each state is obviously so unique. it's a snowball effect. it changes one thing and changes everything else. i would encourage lawmakers, policymakers, election officials, holistic is the exact word. you have to think about unintended consequences when you are changing something. and it's not that change shouldn't occur. it absolutely should. but really thinking hard and deep about what tim packet of that change is going to be. it sounds like congressman davis really and his team are working hard to think about those things hole listically. we ene encourage lawmakers to do the same thing. >> that's a good note to end on. as someone observing this process, i was impress bds the corporation as you can see on the stage among the election directors who came in with a variety of perspectives and practices that everyone should consider and consider adoptingful i would -- adopting. i would like to thank the panelists who did a great job. [applause] turn it over back over to matt. matt: thank you, charles. thank you for panel one, for panel two. and thank you for all coming that's the owned our session. -- that's the end of our session. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.visit ncicap.org] announcer: here's a look at our live coverage for wednesday on the c-span networks. at 10:00 a.m. a look at the skills training needed to deploy 5g technology in the u.s. then at 3:45 p.m., former new york city mayor mike bloomberg speaks at the u.s. conference of mayors. on c-span2, the senate impeachment trial of president trump continues with opening arkts from house managers and he president's defense team. and a hearing on economic adds ministration which makeses investments in economic distressed economy to create jobs and economic growth. that's at 10:00 a.m. eastern. announcer: earlier today, army chief of staff general james mcconville delivered remarks on the army's mission and goals. he spoke of some of the technological advances in the department. >> good morning, i want to thank you all for being here.