Have the support and resources they need. We hope in a few ways we craft and adopt the voluntary Voting System guidelines, a Test Laboratory and certified Voting Systems. Certification clearinghouse of information best practices related to elections. We also maintain the National MaleVoter Registration form which can be used to register to vote, update Registration Information with a new name or address or register with the Political Party and develop recommendations and standards that address the needs of voter voters, state and local election leaders and other election stakeholders. At the end of the day, we were to ensure every eligible american has the opportunity to vote independently, privately and with confidence in our nations election system. We do everything in our power to make sure Election Officials have what they need to support that. Learn more at eac. Gov. Good morning. My name is matt masterson. On the chairman of the Election Assistance Commission. I want to thank you for being here. Thank you for engaging in this discussion, attending this meeting and participating in a kickoff event for 2018 election which i know for the Election Officials in the audience, you have already started long ago. Its just a kickoff for us here today. First, ive been instructed to go through the ever important housekeeping items, its a tall order but i think im up to it. The first item is that this is being recorded but by our folks and cspan so please silence all the bases that you have. Make sure we have everything turned off so we dont have ringing and buzzing throughout the course of the event. Second, the restrooms are located out that door to the left. There is a sign so if you need them feel free to go. There is staff out there that can direct you if you cant find it. Also eas c staff are omnipresent, buzzing around, running around, if you have any needs at all or you have any questions, please grab myself or one of the staff are one of the fellow commissioners and we will be glad to help you out and get you what you need because we appreciate you being here. With that, i just want to start with a couple opening remarks to tee up the discussion. The purpose of todays discussion is to explore the most pressing issues facing our election system today by having a discussion with those most impacted. Thats officials, voters, those who research and study and those who participate in the public discussion and engage the process. Its my sincere hope in the hope of the commission that todays event will result in a meaningful dialogue and conversation that helps to identify areas of emphasis for this year, tease out nuanced challenges facing the selections community, and tease up muchneeded conversations regarding the security, access, and integrity of the election process. In doing so i would like to start by introducing our opening speaker. We could think of no one better to tee up those conversations and that discussion than the man that will open the conference today. He is a friend, a proclaimed geek and someone who has studied elections in a way that few have. I would like to introduce doug, the director of the program and excellence in administration at the Humphrey School public affairs. He came to that position after ten years where he served as a director of Election Officials for the pew center of the states. Many of us start our day reading his blog to begin things off of a couple coffee and today we are fortunate enough to get his take live and in person. He will share some stories and thoughts and t up what we are looking out for this 2018 election season. Let me introduce my friend, doug chapin. [applause] good morning. Thank you matt. My name is doug. Usually we say good morning, doug. Thank you. Its so nice to see some of the familiar faces in the audience. When matt called a few days ago and asked if i would be willing to do this, i was incredibly honored but also aware about being that friend whos always available to help with things like moods and the like. He isnt necessarily good at it but he always answers the phone and so im happy to be that kind of friend to matt and the eac. But seriously though, i do want to thank the eac, not just matt but his fellow commissioners as well as the countless friends and colleagues and former students i have at eac. The eac was a tremendous source of hope when it was created as part of the help america vote act of 2002. It was a tremendous source of frustration when it disappeared for several years a while back, and has really been an amazing asset to the field since its return. I think thats not just on the commissioners but all of the staff and folks they work with. The eac has become a center of gravity in the Election Community. It has really been needed. I think it will serve it well, not just in 2018, but Going Forward. I just want some quick remarks, the other promise i made to matt was that the matter what time we started i would have us done by 10 00 oclock for the first panel. Its a little bit like woody allens clip about the cuisine that the food is bad but the portions are small so i will be as brief as possible. To tee us up for today, a couple of things. The first is, im fond of saying that its free and you cant get a refund, but im fond of saying that the best thing about being your head against a brick wall is how good it feels to stop. I dont know about you, but in many ways, i feel like 2017 was a brick wall against which i am happy no longer to be beating my head. Various efforts at the National Level and across the country that i think were more interference and helpful to Election Officials across the country and so to paraphrase the old country song, i think im happy to see 2017 in our rearview mirror. All thats left is a federal election year. The 2018 federal election. The good news, as it always is, is that as an election official, you dont have to sweat the small stuff. The bad news, of course is that when it comes to elections, there is no small stuff. I think whats significant about 2018 is that what passes for small stuff in elections is getting bigger and bigger every year. I think the one thing we have to acknowledge, and i al always tell people im election geek, not a political junkie but i think you have to be blind not to recognize that 2018 is going to be a very high energy and likely high turnout election in many communities across the country and we are seeing races that have not been contested in a long time, talking about them being contested, i think you can see the energy from novembe november 2017 in december and see that there is an interest in voting in whats typically called an off year election that we dont normally see. With the high energy and with that likely high turnout, you are likely to have close elections. Anybody here from virginia . Alabama, hell hath no fury like an almost tied or actually tied election. I think the nations eyes will be not just on the work that youre doing, but on the outcome itself and that will raise the stakes in a way which is challenging in 2018. Something else that hasnt changed, and to my knowledge hasnt changed, i checked election line everyday and dont see much evidence of it, budgets are still tight. We talk about how important it is to run elections securely and excessively, efficiently and integrity and yet we dont always see policymakers at the federal, state and local level ponying up. I think it has become a job requirement if not part of the formal job requirement to do more with less. With the high energy, high potential turnout election, we are not necessarily seeing tremendous amount of budgetary investment. What you will have to continue to do, what the Election Community will continue to do Going Forward is find a way to meet an ever higher demand for service with a stable or maybe even declining amount of revenue over time. We also seen potential changes in laws, those of you who are attorneys or paying attention more closely or just from ohio, you know the Supreme Court is going to hear argument today in an ohio case regarding national Voter Registration act about the impact of nonvoting on list maintenance, depending on what the Supreme Court decides in that case, we could see significant changes in many states in the way in which voter lists are managed and maintained across the country. That becomes a moving target in a year when the moving targets are necessarily helpful. We are also seeing growing interest in places like california and elsewhere in whats now known, i know i saw amber and jennifer earlier, whats known as the colorado model of Election Administration and election day where voters are mailed ballots and have an option to drop them off, mail them back or bring them to an in person polling place on or before election day. Were starting to see interest in vote centers, vote by mail, changing the way that voters both receive, cast and return their ballots across the country. Two is a moving target and the good news is that legislators tend to pay more attention in election years since they too are on the ballot. I had a legal colleague who once observed and you can tell dated this is, there are two things that every elected official in America Thanks they are an expert in. One is smoking on airplanes and the other is elections because theyve all run in them. The good news is policymakers tend to Pay Attention in election years to election laws. The bad news is that in many ways election years are the worst time to change election laws because it shifts the ground under those of you who actually need to do the work. Ports, the legislatures and sometimes even candidates will push for changes in the way in which election are run across the country. Finally there is the 800pound elephant russian in the room of Cyber Security. I know chairman masterson and other folks out there have often said that Election Officials need to be it officials, but i think in many ways, Cyber Security and the need to focus on not just the physical security of your election system but the digital and Cyber Security of your elections is something thats moving from the other duties as assigned part of the Job Description to an actual line item or paragraph or full section of your Job DisruptionGoing Forward. That is one of those things that i know everyone in the field is incredibly committed to doing and wants to make sure that they do right, the problem is that in many ways we are catching up to the bad guys or the advanced good guys in the field and learning about how exactly to do that. There are some very highlevel things that i know we are already in place and we will hear about those today but there are other things that each of us and the people we work with have to do a better job, better password management. Thinking about how securely we backup our information and where we secure it. Knowing how to spot, respond or not respond to phishing attempts or other attempts to get the data that we work with on a daily basis. One thing that i want to point out that i dont think gets a lot of attention in the area of Cyber Security, i think a lot of the focus in the country right now on Cyber Security is on the impact that the security of the election system can have on the integrity of the outcome, we want to make sure that the people who won the election are the right people and we didnt somehow corrupt that result through intrusions into the election system. That is incredibly important. I want to suggest that in many ways Election Security as well something even more important and thats the security of individual voters. All of us are sources of tremendous amounts of personally identifiable data which are linked to things that we care a lot about, our life savings, our homes, our bank accounts, details of her personal life that we dont necessarily want shared with the highest bidder. In many ways, voter records and election files are keys into those vaults for individual voters. Well its incredibly important to think about Cyber Security as a way to protect the integrity of the election system in the abstract or at large, i also want each of you to think of Cyber Security as a way to protect the individual voters you work with. I know for a fact, i witnessed it personally and ive seen it in new story after new story, there is no one in this room and very few people who not literally go to the ends of the earth to help a voter cast a ballot if they need the help. We need to have that same sense of urgency to protect the data of individual voters even if they are not in front of us facetoface, we ask voters to give us information in order to help participate in the process print we need to make sure we are protecting that information so are protecting not just their votes but the rest of their lives that they bring to the table or into the voting booth when they cast their ballot on election day. That is the challenge and thats a lot of stuff to digest. Youll hear about all that and more today. The good news, to me is that all of those very difficult tasks are an absolutely the right hands. Im fond of saying and anyone who has ever heard me speak probably knows that i say that other than friends and family, my favorite people in the world are Election Officials. You do a job that is poorly defined that has thousands of different requirements, you function as grenade catchers of american democracy, its your job to handle the difficult questions on election day and i am in the press time and time again even though ive seen it for 20 plus years and how capably and enthusiastically and even cheerfully all of you take on that challenge. With shifting politics and shifting laws, with tight budgets and the need to protect Election Security and voters across the country, i can think of no group of people in better hands. I can think of no people in whose hands that task is better put than Election Officials. I am also, again ill turn to where i started, i think were in good hands with the Election Assistance Commission. When i teach my class at the university of minnesota i talk about how the eac has given a lot of responsibility for elections by the help america vote act but not a lot of authority and in many ways congress got the agency they wanted in the agency designed but i think even with that very challenging and limited mandate, the eac plays a crucial role in bringing the Election Community together, sharing information and events like this, being your voice and ear in washington d. C. With the federal government. The challenge before us are vas vast. I know all of you are capable of doing it but i think youre really in good hands with the Election Assistance Commission here in washington d. C. With that i will say that i am looking forward to today. Its always interesting to hear what folks have going on. I know i will have my notepad out when we talk about Cyber Security because i am still figuring out where exactly in that bowl of alphabet suit an