Transcripts For CSPAN Lincoln Network Discussion On Election Security 20240712

Key National Challenges. In 2020, one of the Biggest National challenges we face is to hold the National Challenge National Selection during the covid19 pandemic. Today, we are honored to host leading experts from the national and intergovernmental community that protects state and local government Information Systems. First, well hear from jeffrey hale, the director of the Election Security initiative at the department of Homeland Security. He will be followed by a discussion including questions from the audience. Please feel free to use the chat function here on zoom to ask questions. After that, the second half of our program will feature a discussion with representatives of associations of discussions on leaders. Lindsay forson, with National Association of secretaries of state. And Maggie Brunner, a director for Homeland Security at the National Governors association. First, its really terrific to have an opportunity to hear from jeffrey and the department of Homeland Security. Since the summer of 2016, d. H. S. Has been leading a national Nonpartisan Initiative to support state and local governments and securing their election systems what which are a part of the nations critical infrastructure. Jeff is the director and the senior official at the Cyber Security and infrastructure security at the department. The Election Security initiative is a d. H. S. Led interagency body charged with coordinating federal support for the community. Jeff is experienced in Cyber Operations planner. Hes a graduate of the university of virginia and earned his masters degree in Systems Engineering from George Washington university. Jeff, thank you very much for joining us. Jeff thank you for having me. Good afternoon, all. Im here in arlington, virginia where the Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security Agency is located. We have were previously known as nppd, the National Protections and programs directat. And that name didnt tell anyone what our jobs job was. But its been quite a journey to o from nppd and go to Election Security. I would have to say in 2016, we were certainly caught off guard. We hadnt made the same inroads with the Election Community that we focused on over the last four years, working with individuals at the National Association of state election directors and the National Governors association. Over that time, weve focused on finding our mission, which to is is to provide advice to election stakeholders. So we focus on helping election state holder to identify and then detect manage and mitigate risk to their representative system. And its important to recognize at we see the election state holders. Not only the Election Officials that managed Voter Registration data bases and the vendors that support them, that community that we call election infrastructure. But we engage with partisan organizations, campaigns and the of torate as our third line effort. We structure our work accordingly. In early 2017, our support to election infrastructure was more formalized by declaring that sector part of i critical infrastructure. We could do a lot better of a job to explain what that meant. But because it wasnt very a popular decision at the time. And i hope over the course of the years, that they seen that d. H. S. Is present that that Cyber Security and infrastructure security is present in Election Security is really a supporting function, helping to provide the information and Vulnerability Management systems to manage risk to their system. To do so, weve tried to establish an information sharing environment really focused. Ound the ei, its what stood up in 2018. And then since that time has expanded to all 50 states as has more than 200 or 2,500 local jurisdictions. Theyve deployed intrusion for the purpose of helping to understand what type of traffic is targeting election infrastructure across the state. So its really been a rapid evolution of the of the information sharing of the communal defense in this sector. Weve weve been able to take some of the best practices learned from doing this type of support for other critical infrastructures sectors and apply it to our support to an infrastructure sector. Thats a little different when we support the partisan organizations, campaigns and the party committees, which we have the same Vulnerability Management services. But they represent such a different use of infrastructure. Often, its entirely manage Service Providors or distributed system with no Central Security service. O it is very much about the practices of the individual of Security Awareness. Understanding threats and vulnerabilities as opposed to the election infrom struck chumplete our third line is that Stakeholder Group the electorate. And then, how do we recognize the risk of them being targeted. So we have we think of it as the f. B. I. , the Intelligence Community focuses on stopping bad actors from producing miss and disinformation and targeting the public. We focus on the other side of the equation trying to make the electorate a more resilient electorate to the activity of the misinformation actors, so that they can be more critical consumers of information and s of anagement risk Information Operation that way. We had a successful launch about this time last year. Trying to explain the tax system techniques. We called it the war on pineapple. And used the divisive issue of pineapple on pizza, to explore that nations go through in accepting an Information Operations campaign. And so were very pleased with that update. It actually became the pineapple became a bit of a mass scott for our agency. We have additional products that are focusing on individual steps one can take to reduce their exposure and the likelihood of sharing and spreading disinformation on any particular going to, not just selection. Thank you, guys for having me. And i look forward to your questions. Thank you, jeffrey, one question i know is on everyones mind is how the Current Situation that were living in with this pandemic. And changing that the nation faces in terms of preparing for a meeting in these unique circumstances. 2020 wasnt going to be challenging enough. We had to throw in a pandemic in there. Our job is to support the states and their decisions on how to manage elections. So some have expanded the use of mailin voting. Others are making decisions to centralize voting location and operate. Weve seen the pandemic apply pressure in certain areas, the illingness of some coworkers. Oftentimes there are individuals , many coworkers are at an age thats susceptible to the virus. In taking steps for them to have the appropriate Operational Support to run and management the election while main taking the health and safety of the community. Weve been able to work with the u. S. Election assistance commission. To work with Election Officials our Government Coordinating Council to produce a series of best practices for both inperson voting under this these conditions and then expansion of mailin voting. We dont view infrastructure being used. Of systems, it is essential to understand how you manage and mitigate risks. Host in terms of the confidence of the voting public absentee balloting has been around for quite some time, but now we are moving to this unique circumstance with potentially a majority of people using the systems which many are not fully confident with having past experience using. How does that affect the trust in the election and the potential risk for adversaries to potentially exploit that lack of knowledge . Certainly communicating any changes with the electorate to the voting administrative process. To what they can expect in an increased mail scenario. That is essential. One of our guidance documents really supports this and it communicates to the public because much like Security Awareness it is essential for security, just like voting awareness and the shift from the administrative expectation is essential for officials to communicate with stakeholders. As you said, some states have been doing all mail in election since i believe the brennan 2000. Center cited in 2018 more than a quarter of ballots returned were by mail. In pockets across the country, there are there is very strong familiarity with the process and security of these mail in approach. Educating the rest of the country on how that is administered under a short timeline is essential. Host another question i have is how has the cybersecurity landscape changed . Secretary johnson august of 2016 statement about potential threats. How do you see the landscape evolving . Particularly in the past year weve seen a ransom ware attacks. Where do you see the biggest risks to cyber election infrastructure . Anything connected to the internet is going to face that lowlevel cyber activity you see all of the time. We have seen an evolution of the information sharing across the sector from one that did not really exist as a unified Security Community to one thats fully embraced not just incident reporting, but activity reporting. This awareness increases the cognizance we have that we can detect every tremor affecting the election infrastructure sector. Know18, we did not even who the state chief election officer was in each state. As ahas been an evolution national Security Community that did not exist prior. We have a question here in the chat. Would it make your job easier to have a strong clear warning about internet voting echoing your warning . I have been very pleased by the response to our Risk Management guidance for electronic ballot delivery marking and return. The short of it is there are can expedite the process of getting a ballot out to necessary communities. But we highly recommend returning a paper ballot and not using electronic return because we do not see those risks as being manageable with current technology. I do not have any expectations for the statement to be echoed by anyone else. We had eac mist and the fbi coauthor on the purpose of that document is for communities like them, they are consumers and they can do what they want. We been very thrilled with that partnership. Host another question that has been shared with me involves some of the experience with primaries over the last few months. Some states and cities, there have been reports of long lines, voters waiting up to five hours to be able to vote. When you are talking with election directors and stakeholders, what has been your ,iew of that challenge securityrelated risks, thinking also about protecting physical security . What are you learning . A fascinating space. We have got to the point operational risks to operate the , election to conduct the election is superseding what i had focused on for the last four years, cyber risk and infrastructure risk. There is a need for more and healthy poll workers. Some estimates say theres a million more poll workers needed to conduct the election in november. There is a need for certainty around polling location. Once you have those type of Resources Available, you can use Operations Research to plan out how long your lines will be. But frankly in some recent elections and in forthcoming elections you are centralizing voting locations, Voting Centers in this manner. Its going to end up with long lines if you dont have the other resources to check people in, to get them their appropriate ballots, to usher them through trade honestly that and honestly that operational element is one area Election Officials need the support of americans as much as anything else. Some of our attendees today may be new to learning about this. Can you talk about the various services that are provided to state and local government including the Albert Sensor program . How has that been perceived and what is the prospect of utilizing that type of tool and other tools developing over the next five months . Absolutely. The cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency supports the security of Infrastructure Partners and the federal government for more than just the election infrastructure sector. We have taken best practices we have learned across support to the financial sector, the chemical sector, and tried to apply them here. ,ll the services that existed these are things like vulnerability scanning, Risk Assessments, penetration testing. We have evolved some of these to allow more scalable remote beenities, which has essential considering we are not all operating in a dispersed environment during this pandemic. A lot of the Vulnerability Management are how we start to understand what is really impacting the sector and where we can make the most gains. We focus on identifying trends across those findings and producing trainings, exercising with them. We have done three National Level exercises for the election infrastructure community. We also do individual state or vendor exercises, the national exercisers have more than 44 states in each instance , in some cases thousands of locals participating from their location, and those are about how you identify, how to detect, how to report them appropriately, how to get the federal government involved, their chief Election Officials involved, so nothing goes unnoticed. These are the type of things we evolve from a to onetoone understanding to have to do something more mature where we get a robust understanding of the activities of this community. At the Lincoln Network, we interested inty finding ways to make a contribution to support improving the security of the election systems. Can you talk to some of the ways , open source communities . With the Technology Community and open source communities . I describe the three Stakeholder Groups we support. What has been essential underlying all of that has been a network of technologists, the Intelligence Community, of vendors, of cybersecurity experts, to provide an indicator and warming warning primer and response across all of this. It is not just an activity where we have evolved our understanding. Take threat able to vendors particular insight and inform the states particular awareness. Really being able to have a collective defense mentality and bring these communities together for the benefit of the sector that has been essential. It did not exist in 2016 or 2017. Director gave us the charge to improve warning communityse for this and there has been a collective response. To your example of pineapple pizza and looking at issues that are very divisive, at the highest level of National Politics right now the issue of absentee voting and voting by mail is becoming very divisive. It is at the front and center of the current president ial campaign. Can you talk about how or whether you see adversaries exploiting that division, what the public can do about it . It is important to support Election Officials and their decisions on how to administer elections and help them amplify their voice their particular decision. If there is an expansion of a vote by mail or the deadlines, how does that impact reporting . The necessary and critical information out there so that the appetite for misinformation is reduced. This is why we work very closely with local Election Officials to help amplify the trusted voices, the trustly through in Voice Initiative in order to ensure the correct voice is loudest here. Host thank you we have a question hear from the audience from jennifer. What are the open questions most need additional Technical Research to get, what kind of tools documents other resources from the Industrial Research community would be . Would be most helpful to improve Election Security . Guest thats a great question. One of the areas the next decade of security will be defined by is the efficiency and effectiveness of postelection audit. We have been very big about the need for paper in order to for thethe auditability sector. Timeway that is less intensive, resource intensive, and helps provide the statistical certainty that the election is counted the way it should be. Have you seen a pickup of those Auditing Services . Guest absolutely. I believe a recent estimate is that 92 of voters will cast a vote on an auditable record. That does not mean they will all be audited, but over the last at thers, particularly jurisdiction level, many of the county jurisdictions are taking up practicing audits or other postelection audit tools in order to drive that certainty. Host there is another question hear from peter. During the primaries, what patterns of intrusions have been blocked . Have you released Public Information on that threat and who was doing it . Guest we see a lot of the typical internet behavior. One of the interesting things is the amount of web application scamming, attempts at injections, things just blocked by web application firewalls. That occurs every day. Either because secretary of state Networks Host election infrastructure or some of them have other business responsibilities that are also valuable, high assets. Highvalue assets. Potential nationstate targets. This has been one where our understanding of what affects the community has increased 1000 fold. Which is why we set up the information sharing and Analysis Centers so the signatures are investigated, but also distributed across the sector and other infrastructure sectors. Sharing isure available through a lot of information sharing platforms. I would like to know what is the biggest risk you are concerned about . 2020 has been a pretty incredible year. What can we expect to see and what are you preparing for that may not be on our radar . Guest before february and march i had one answer. I will give you that. This is such an asymmetric advantage to our adversaries. They do not have to touch a system at all in order to see where there were problems in and then claimed they had some type of cyber behavior. Spreading disinformation, undermining the confidence in institutions, just through other operational facts. And now as i alluded to earlier, the operational risks for Election Officials is high as ever. The ability to have the appropriate amount of staff of poll workers to support their ability to conduct an election is higher than ever. We are almost at the bottom like toour, so i would bring in our other guest. You provided helpful background on the national view. The states to perspective. Elections are at the state and local level. While governors are not responsible for administering elections, they play a Critical Role leading state efforts to protect Information Systems and critical infrastructure. We are really thrilled to have experts from the National Association of secretaries of state and the National Governors association joining us today. We are also grateful you are willing to stick around for this discussion. Manager at theam National Association of secretaries of state. Founded in 1934, its the oldest Nonpartisan Group for officials. Manages the associations relationships related to cybersecurity and Election Security, she has a masters degree from Auburn University and is a doctoral candidate in auburns graduate program in public policy. We are also joined by Maggie Brunner who served as the Program Director for Public Security and safety. It is the voice of the leaders of the 55 states and commonwealth. She focuses on Cyber Security policy, Homeland Security and Public Safety technology. Maggie holds a jd from william and Mary Law School and a bachelors degree in history. Thank you for joining us. Could you share opening or marks about your perspective representing nga . Maggie thanks for having me today. I am the Cybersecurity Program manager at the National Association of secretaries of state. Nass represents secretaries of state and some lieutenant governors. 40 of our members serve as their states chief election official. That varies from state to state, but all of them are involved in similar processes overseeing Voter Registration systems, working with local officials on Election Administration in different ways. Nass about two years ago. Im focused on cybersecurity. Really every aspect of their job. The secretaries oversee Election Administration and Voter Registration, but many have other roles as well. Business services, state archives, and a range of different things. A range of them have responsibilities. They take cybersecurity very seriously for every single element of their job. One of our main roles, it is to facilitate the sharing of information and ideas and practices. We hold conferences. We hold regular calls, regular meetings with secretaries and members of their staff. One of the major things i do is facilitate information sharing among the i. T. Directors, cios office on ay regular basis. We hold two tech talk sessions every year where we get them in a room and allow them to share ideas, share questions they are facing and see what other states are doing. That is what we see as our major role. Helping states with their individual practices by getting ideas from what other states are already doing well. Also to be the facilitator of information sharing with the federal government. Between thenership secretaries and also with other federal agencies, other nonprofit organizations, nass see themselves as a mechanism to help information go back and forth. Thank you. Maggie . Maggie yes, thank you. Mentioned, i am a director for cybersecurity at nga. We do not lobby. We are a subsidiary of 501 c 3 . We are responsible in that capacity for pulling together a network of Security Leaders whether its Homeland Security advisors, National Guard, really i think everybody in the state role who is focus from the governors level on trying to improve overall security in the state. As you mentioned, lindsay spoke to the infrastructure here and many states governors are constitutionally separate from secretaries of state. That makes a lot of sense, but with security, we like to figure out ways we can be allies. It is important we muster every resource. What are some ways that states can help, theres overlap. Jeff mentioned he had one view of the risk that we take administering elections. The perspective and the challenge facing secretaries of state and governors changed over over thisew months unprecedented challenge in the pandemic . Secretaries, elections are decentralized in our countries and we have Different Administration systems, infrastructures, policies, practices across the 50 states. In many cases within the 50 states. It has been really important for states and localities to do individual Risk Assessments, to look at their assets and determine where they need to prioritize to manage risk. And they continue to do that. Made it necessary that states and localities operations may be expanding or shifting. A lot of the systems we talk are priorityhat those onesrotection, that are internet connected and they have to be internet connected by nature, web applications where voters can find their polling place, ballot dropbox, or online registering to vote online, requesting an absentee ballot online, all of those symptoms . Systems were Priority Areas before the pandemic. The way that voting practices may be shifting, there probably only going to become more of a priority area as vote by mail may be expanding its only that much more important that we protect the integrity of rotor of Voter Registration data, for example, as more people want to request absentee ballots only are important that they able to they have the availability to request that absentee ballot online if that is what that state does. Individually it will come down to stay practices and what they are doing. They are just continuing to assess risk and manage risk as operations change. That may shift risk calculations. One thing that nobody expected was the rapid shift that had to happen to remote work. That certainly introduced new risk, new technology, new processes. Remotelyle connecting that were not previously. That added an additional thing that states had to do. Also a big part of the role in , state security is to assist their locals in cybersecurity. There are more than 8000 local jurisdictions across the state allhe United States that play a role in this. They have launched programs like the Cyber Navigator Programs for example where they have state staff that goes out and helps their locals do Risk Assessment and prioritize the top five things they can do to best manage risk. So through the cyber navigating programs and other existing mechanisms, the state already had in place, they were able to help locals facilitate that shift to remote work while helping local systems they were connecting with. Membersfor our specifically it feels very different now. Due to this pandemic governors are using authorities to electionsork around at unprecedented levels for us. During hurricanes governors have used executive authority, we have a look at what that entails with Emergency Declarations. Is the first time in our nations history that every single state and territories having an Emergency Declaration at the same time. It is very different. Right now our members are being asked to difficult novel questions like what if they use their executive power to close a school that is a poll location . What is their role with the pole workforce cap . Can furloughed state employees be used here . They have issued executive orders for contractors. Several have used executive orders for vote by mail. I dont think we have answers to all of the questions but we are thinking about. Dan thank you both. As a reminder to all of our guests, you are welcome to ask questions in the q a block or through the chat. A question from matthew. Beenronic polls have contribute into lines in some jurisdictions including in los angeles. Books have weaknesses especially in jurisdictions in huge increases in voting by mail especially in philadelphia what are ways for jurisdictions to use electronic poll books safely and securely . Would anyone like to way and on that . Ahead, maggie. Maggie i would love to see more ooks. Rch on poll b jeff we definitely want to build resilience into the use of e poll books. They obviously drive inefficiency in the process depending upon the state policy environment. To reduce any type of attempts or confusion of being at the wrong polling location we are to havear in the need this information and the need to train on the use of epoll books. It may not be the quantity of training. But the effectiveness of training on new equipment. New votingre using systems, if they are not out, touching the machines, learning machines, operating the elections,efore the for longmore potential lines or any type of delay. Other to add to what the other two have said, e poll books add additional options adding flexibility. To facilitate sameday Voter Registration, as an example. As with most things in security, we focus on resilience. Having paper backups when thats possible with your practices having different types of backups, training poll workers on what to do if something goes mentioned,as jeff poll worker training is a big issue. This year, where we have a lot of new workers, our typical demographic, which is frankly a we willer crowd than have this year because of covid, because of Older Americans being in the highest risk category, theres going to be a lot of training implications for poll workers. E pollg them how to use books is just one of those implications. Questionsleads into that have been asked by peter. Can anyone speak to some of the challenges that were experienced in los angeless primary with significant investment in design voting machine that have been reported to have operational failures . Also a secondary question from peter is that in georgia there are long lines and some view that it was the fault of volunteers not showing up. Who is taking responsibility for these types of failures as it relates to long lines and challenges with getting volunteers . As for los angeles, i do not want to way and on that. As for long lines and a lot of the challenges we have seen in the primaries during the a shared there is responsibility and that is different from state to state. The is most important is states are sharing information at their primary after a primary happens. Weekly calls where we can talk about what went right, folksent wrong, and what can proactively do to avoid the challenges others have faced. A reason, are especially in terms of covid, that Election Officials are encouraging voters to vote by mail or early vote so we do not have long lines where it is very difficult to social distance on election day. The poll worker challenge is a valid one. Several states have seen primaries where people who were originally planning to be a poll worker either had to back out of being a poll worker because of being in a High Risk Health category or didnt show up so states have had to in the last minute recruit poll workers for through innovative methods. Some have even called on the National Guard to do that. Recruiting poll workers in innovative ways are something a lot of states are focused on doing. Nebraska partnered with a couple associations in their state, ohio did as well, to try to recruit poll workers through different methods than we already are recruiting them. Working with an association for realtors or attorneys or for teachers, for example, to try to recruit new poll workers. I say it on every panel i sit on , anyone in the audience if you want to look for a way to help make elections run more smoothly in november, sign up to be a poll worker, encourage other people you know to sign up to be a poll worker. Its going be vitally important. I want to add to that, someone who comes from this background its important to , it is important to focus on the future. These conversations can be happening, the sooner we can figure out backup contingencies for every part of the infrastructure. We can figure out not only the so our folks, we want to be doing whatever we can to support the secretaries of state and the state election directors. Another question we have in the chat is from matthew asking shift to more widespread absentee balloting and voting by mail, it is likely that will lead to delayed election counting. It may not have results on Election Night as we are accustomed to. Can any of you speak to the challenges we face in terms of Public Confidence in the election and what may happen the day after that tuesday in november . Lindsey a big thing our members are discussing on these calls i mentioned and through other forums is Voter Education. Voter education is important in every election cycle. It is extremely important this election cycle when operations are changing, sometimes operations are changing closer to election day than we would like them to be. That certainly as vote by mail or expanded absentee voting happens in more states, we are going to see slower results. Slower results coming in from the states. That is something where Election Officials are talking about now how to manage expectations for voters. We had a conversation on last weeks election call. The more votes that come in by mail, probably the later we are going to have results. It is really a Voter Education thing, helping people understand that just because we may not know who the president of the United States is on Election Night or the next day, maybe even the day after that, that does not mean something went wrong. We are focused on how to educate them on how the process is going to unfold, why it may take longer for results to be reported, especially results from the chief Election Officials and that is something we need to be doing now. Everybody who has an audience of voters, that is a really important thing to be talking about. A question i have involves the Resources Available to the states and the election directors. Over the past few years, overess has appropriated 1 billion for Election Administration. As we are now approaching the november election, five months away, what do you see in terms of resource needs that are out there . Is more funding needed . Or has currently available funding been spent . What is the picture from the states . Lindsey i think states are all in a tough budget climate. One thing that is going to be challenging with the most recent case, the objection that came to coronavirus is just a match. It is something i think we are really focused on educating our members about. You have to worry what the purpose of a match is. Is it to keep people from being able to access because of the climate we are in . Some, lack ofr understanding about this, too. Access toes need to the government before people can be tapped into it. One common complete we hear from states is we are hearing people with access funds were not legally allowed to. Spend 100 int to six months. I think there is education that should happen around state funds and based off what we are seeing with states having to choose between, do we want to provide additional medicaid benefits, do snap . T to provide they are furloughing state workers which is really important to understand. Does have as position related to Election Security funding. Stable federal funding to supplement state funding for Election Security. The stable part of that is key. The state, they so our secretary of state from minnesota now famously has said Election Security is a race without a finish line. Now every secretary and a lot of other folks use that line. It is very true. Is about managing risks longterm and reacting to a landscape. They want to use the money well and not spend it as quickly as possible like they are getting some pressure to do. When it comes to Election Security funding, they are planning how to use those funds over many years. An example i often give the state Cyber Navigator Program. Its been identified by many groups as one of the most important things states can do. That is a program where they support their local with election cybersecurity. It is not state improvements. It is going out and having employees on the ground in 8000 local election jurisdictions. Funding a Cyber Navigator Program is longterm. Your funding travel, you are funding new initiatives for that program. Hopefully for the long run. States are not spending all the money right away because they are planning for it over many years when it comes to Election Security. That is why they want to stable injection of funds from congress they can plan for. And know how much is going to be and when it is going to come. We do not have a position on the most recent funding. I know many secretaries have encouraged members of congress to match, the requirement is very difficult. If is a way to get rid of the match, many states have encouraged their members of congress to help them with that. Beyond that, we have what we have right now. States are talking about how to best use that. Used to meetn be that requirement so they can take advantage of this funding . Maggie one change Going Forward is that security grants administered through fema, now you have a requirement for Election Security projects. One thing both lindsey and i can do is find projects where there are economies of scale. There particularly proud of Cyber Navigator Program. Navigators and so we are seeing incidental benefits. It is improving local cybersecurity in general and building trust. When there are nonelection cyber incidents, those relationships are already established. We are nearing the end of our ohur. I wanted to see if any of you could provide parting thoughts or recommendations you would like to share with our community of technologists around the country who are interested in this issue and seeing how they can make a difference. Thanks for that first off. I love it when people come and say how can we help . Thats very heartwarming for folks who really want to be focused on state cyber government. I am a lawyer. We have pro bono requirements i would love to see more of that. In tech. Especially now we are at a time of real activism. I dont want to discourage people from volunteering in a food bank, but think about the words of liam needs some. Neeson. I have a very specialized set of skills. During covid one thing we thought was great the response set up and went into rapidly deployed technology to help the State Government with things like your Unemployment Benefits to bring the best minds in tech to volunteer. Theres a lot of ways to get involved. Inclinede at all towards military, the National Guard really does need cyber professionals to bolster their election resilience efforts. Or can either join a guard in your work environment, employees can get involved. Not everyone is so inclined i did mention there are some models they put up during covid. There are states that have institutionalized that. There are states around the country that really do utilize cyber volunteers. Michigan has a civilian core. It is a great way to help out when there is a problem. If you want more cyber professionals, they provide you with training handson but also formalized training. There are some states i think in delaware specifically they have a Disclosure Program and i do see that more and more. Not as cool as getting a couple thousand bucks from the crowd but the end of the day wed like to see that spirit of pro bono. I will echo a lot of the things maggie said. I just want folks to know that although covid19s impact on Election Administration has taken over much of the national conversation, secretaries of state, their staff, remain very focused on Election Security. We remain focused on how to share information. We have not slowed down information sharing through the Government Coordinating Council , through our relationship with has picked up regular conversation amongst the it and cybersecurity. There are states looking for innovative ways to share information. Ohio for example has started constantly feeding information. Through specific bushes suspicious activity reports. Thats not the type of information you would usually be reporting. But its more information sharing the better we are continually focused on this by secretaries of state focused on cybersecurity throughout this pandemic. There are things tech organizations can do. I tend to crowd source the answer to this question from the test group. A couple of things they mention, if you do any monitoring for misinformation, for influence operation, cyber threats, cyber incidents, look for ways you can share that information with state Election Officials, with other government partners. Theres a great way you can do that theyre willing to partner with folks to help our stakeholders get more partnering directly with localities, many states are looking to launch a Vulnerability Management programs, they are looking for help from the tech industry. If you have an audience, educate your audience on this information, getting information from trusted sources, from Election Officials. On emerging threats. Free and discounted services, several Tech Companies partner with states and localities to offer free and Discount Services that have been effective. My advice to you there would be, reach out to some Election Officials and see with their particular needs are in that area. Lastly, sign up to be a poll worker if you run a company where you can have your employees sign up for a poll workers as well, a great thing to encourage them to do as well. Thank you for having me. Dan jeff, any concluding thoughts . Jeff first, thank you for having me again. Maggie and lindsey were right on. Particularly about the vulnerability Disclosure Program and when i was exposed to this first sector people characterize a history of hostility between Vulnerability Management in the alexion community. Ould not alexion Election Community. I would not characterize it that way anymore. The secretary of state, the local Election Officials, the state election directors of all developed more mature robust cyber shops trying to ingest on information on hybrid attacks direct cyber attacks, they are looking for the most valuable information you can provide an often time for technologists, the services they can provide. I also want to highlight their key audience here. State legislatures who have a strong impact on this community and their ability to help educate them on a particular Election Security and many of the resources they have and help them make good policy decisions with their state Election Officials. Dan that is a great recommendation, thank you. We are out of time and i want to close by thanking all of our panelists for their time and thoughtful perspectives. I know each of you are very busy so we are very grateful you are able to spend part of your afternoon with us. I would also like to thank everyone joining us today the Lincoln Network will hold future discussions on Election Security and cybersecurity. Please stay tuned for our future invitations including a discussion next week with congressman rodney davis from illinois the Ranking Member of the House Committee on administration. Thank you all for your time and we hope you will be joining us again soon. Washington journal. Every day we are taking your calls on the air on the news of the day and discussing policy issues that impact you. Tuesday morning, former Homeland Security secretary tom ridge on voting Security Issues in the upcoming elections. And the Current Supreme Court term with the Constitutional Accountability Centers elizabeth weider. Discussionjoin the with your phone calls, facebook comments, text messages, and tweets. Tuesday on the cspan networks, the house energy and commerce , anthony fauci, and fda commissioner dr. Steven hong on the federal response to the pandemic. On the, a hearing foreign sovereign communities act instate lawsuits against china seeking damages for the spread of covid19. 10 00 am thet Senate Returns to continue work on the nomination of cory wilson. The Washington Post interviews former National Security advisor john bolton at 1 00 p. M. Talking about his new book. On cspan 3 the Senate Health Committee Meets at 10 00 a. M. 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