Starting with what you will see before you. And then second beginning at 315 with the problems of tackling disinformation and we are delighted to start off today with remarks of those run the frontline we have the director performance security and infrastructure security at the department of Homeland Security and then coming right from the frontlines to deal with these issues he will give us an overview of what that government is trying to do to tackle the issue head on. And then most recently was the National Security council and the director for resilience and then to be engaged in Election Security and integrity. At that the Harvard Institute of politics and with that Public Outreach and the various issues so we would be concerned since the 2016 election. Mark will be joined by a david founder for the center for election and research one dad is devoted to this precise issue and has spent many years at the Pew Research Foundation looking at public am pulling opinion. And last but not least and that many of you will know in the audience for legal affairs. Thank you for joining us today. And then to answer thes questions thank you for sending and questions thank you for joining us today. Its great to see you again Election Security is an issue i have spent and my tenured year at the department as the leader for Cybersecurity Agency was established by law in 2018 and then to have a compulsory emission. And elections and then describe what i had in 26 team on 2016 i like and not to 1957. When the soviets play sputnik into orbit and that the soviets beat us to space. And with that geographic differences in that icbm effectively demonstrated and with the American People previously cybersecurity is an issue in terms of the attacks on banks or hacking sony because you did not like a video. This was truly the affront to the American People it demonstrated the potentiality to undermine democracy at large. So to talk about where we been the last several years and where we need to go so looking at the last three and half years there have always been national Election Security. But previously what we have been able to create through our Partnership Mechanisms is the true coordinating council all levels of government to work on these issues to isolate and identify trends and this one best practices that has led to another key achievement with information sharing and the Analysis Center and then prior to 2017 no such existed so we establish that with the help of our partners we have all 50 states and thousands of local jurisdictions that participate in this partnership and again and with the emerging threats and risks to share quickly and effectively. We absolutely improve the cybersecurity resilience posture i said it before and i will say it again the 2020 election is the most secure election in modern history. Why is that . In part through this practice we can truly raise the awareness of cybersecurity threats they get it and are taking action just a great example the time to patch for critical vulnerabilities has been cut in half over the last year and a half that is critical to word providing the hygiene of the networks we rely on. We have more sensors on intrusion Detection Center on sensors every single state election network. In the state of florida all 67 counties have these. In the sector or subsector and have the best visibility. There is a tremor out there in the first we can feel and act on it that is an absolute metric of success also with the 2016 election between 80 and 82 percent of votes were cast why is that paper record important . It leads to auditability which is a key component to determine the integrity of the vote will a back to make sure you have the right results and through that process where are we in 2020 we were on track 92 percent but in part we will see an increase may be over 92 percent with the increase of absentee ballots to conduct postelection audits is critical to establish the integrity of the election. The last several years we are truly developed a unified United States government effort this isnt just a System Mission we have coordinated support from the Intelligence Community with the National Security agency but others in the Intelligence Community are supporting as well and they are on the lookout every day from threats against election and infrastructure very active participation and engagement you heard director ray two weeks ago mention it to kick off chinese related counterintelligence every ten hours the third pieces the department of defense so when they go out there they work in the sphere of influence of russia and Ukraine Northern macedonia and ace activity of foreign actors we dont just take the cybersecurity aspect that we can work and see the playbook so if we are targeting those databases those that we can provide the state and local partners the top three things we have done the last several years developed that community of practice to increase the cybersecurity where do we need to go the next several months we are 100 days out from novembe november 3rd early voting starts in 70 days so we are absolutely in the pipeline toward a significant election. First and foremost changes in the air and i mean that literally. Covid19 is changing how every election across this country will take place in november. And then to share the information on whats happening in these elections. And not seeing that level of coordinated determined cyberactivity from adversaries. We do have better visibility across the network and not seeing that same level and 2016. Im paranoid by nature so i say what do we think the bad guys can do . We kicked off and Initiative Last summer primarily informed by the increase of ransomware attacking state and local networks. Wouldnt it be a bad day if we go to the registration database and that was attacked in advance in the months of the 2020 election. So we worked with state and local partners and increase the posture the posture. And we do anticipate but to put in that. After the election. And thats why we put so much emphasis on the odd abilities system. And whether it is the invalidation of those being centers in a number of the volunteers that support elections and then to expand early voting and absentee voting. Its critical they get the information out there. Meant to play a role to educate and inform voters. So from midfebruary working closely and to get good guidance of how to disinfect and sanitize implement good social distancing like a mask on election day and in person voting. And with those good security protocols in place any kind of voting has risks. With the appropriate security controls put in place any sort of paper ballot backup will lead to post election audit success. Wrapping it up leaving with parting thoughts. And to ensure that you take the unprecedented step whether dhs or the Intelligence Community and department of defense or Law Enforcement to make sure we have that topline goal of voters. To make it that much harder for them to achieve success. Russia wants to destabilize and the defenses up we are ready for it but what we are looking for is a prepared voter. Please make sure you have a pla plan. Educate understand how things may have changed in your jurisdiction. If you have a normal polling place it set location or go to another place. We will need hundreds of thousands of election official volunteers. If you have the ability to do so volunteered to be an election official. And we need patient voters it is a time of change. It may not be the case if we have all the information. To understand that because of the changes may take more time. Thank you again for the opportunity to speak. And those three pletters are very important to keep in mind that were all talking in preparation for the event. And so if you can elaborate a little. And those that want to volunteer. And without people worrying exactly about the consolidation of polling places so what will we do as they think exactly and preparing others that the democrats have broad in belgium and with those younger volunteers and with participation and retirees have more time on their hands now more than they anticipated because of covid19 many may not be able to return in person to the universities and im sure david in particular has thought about this. So with the questions of the mailin voting in the paper ballots something we havent thought about and to interfere with the process in some way that may be obvious but the less likely that what could be new targets for Security Breaches the volatile schemes are if there could be a risk of the mail being compromised in some way or Security Breaches we might not have thought about and with enough capacity so i will get back to you because people are worried about so what do you say to people . And then to touch upon. Of natural risk managers have never seen a group so adaptable. Looking down at florida i county was wiped out. And then natural risk managers over the last several months. And with those vote centers and polling locations. And we should expect that all of the classic historical polling locations will be used schools are out of service and Fire Departments are the emergency technicians to make sure they are safe and secure. And in atlanta where the hocks play these are open spaces to have socially distance places. And they have pretty good success that the courts intervened. There are 2200 ballot configurations and that is the complexity of a foreign adversary in particular. And coming from st. Petersburg and then to understand and then get the signatures and those methods of validating every type of voting has a risk associated with it. And to implement them in a way to mitigate that risk when i look at new jersey you touch the screen and it goes to removable media and that is a potential for a net positive. I know everyone else is eager to get into this. Not only do you work at the federal level but also and not have to Something Else that we cannot disclosure that but then to start tackling what weve been talking about. So to be very specific questions and then to teach with thes politics and to be future mark harveys what is your perspective . Absolutely and thank you for having us today. This is a tremendous panel and those were incredible words and frankly having been there to see those early meetings between the federal and state and local governments. This will not happen without it they have worked very hard the last three years to gain trust please do not discount that is the current see upon which the entire system works is the most important part to consider i was asked when i got to harvard what can i do to make sure my vote is counted . My answer was dont just think about the vote and to certify the election. And then getting candidates eligible for the ballot. And then to certify those and communicate that certification where the officeholders enter into the new service positions. With a system of systems when all the resources to have a focus on cybersecurity after 2016 lets recognize all the resources necessary along the way. And then technology and communication. And those with the best sensors in place as you saw with twitter if you are willing to corrupt the entire process naive lost trust and faith. And then to execute the election what are the controls we have in place to make sure every step along the way we have the ability to provide a level of integrity and those are things that have to happen with those legal controls how somebody qualifies and how it is administered and then afterwards and the audit process. We created a lot of these problems for ourselves because after 2000 we start to incorporate more technology if you think about those categories of resources together the gaps between those and how they are used create vulnerabilities in the system we have to think through with covid we are rapidly changing every single one of those categories with a new group of volunteers and in many cases trying to capture new sets of data that happened in iowa with the first primary we want three results. The minute to take out that existing polling place anything different introduce vulnerabilities into the system. Also using information technology. Many states have bought equipment with the funds made available after 2016. This will be the first general election where things are used but also asking people to change and the changes of that utilization rate introduce vulnerabilities. All of that said that requires patience and the best thing that can be done for november is to tell everybody take a week off. Dont report a single results are ballots cast november 3rd through november 10 show mr. Smith goes to washington and hamilton have a great week of civic pride and we will announce who is one at the end that will give us time to count ballots and give us time to do audits and identify if and where there are concerns and then that is being counted. And theres a lot of motion within each. And what you saw the necessity in terms of setting up outreach. And they are all very eager to hear from you. They give her having me on the panel i completely agree with what has been said and even in the highly partisan times across the political spectrum. They will tell you how well they are working to secure that system and thats a tremendous victory i have been doing elections over 20 years in the Justice Department and then since 2016 founding my new concerns. One target is the infrastructure to rely upon technology more and more it is much more accurate and quicker for those who have challenges. But that technology does become the target we do know the Voter Registration database is targeted many other attempts were made to infiltrate but perhaps the bigger target to diminish confidence that our system of democracy is working with the voice of the people and we have to be very considerate about those targets because they have to secure the system and theyve done a much better job at that. Now we have paper ballots in more places now georgia has paper ballots philadelphia, philadelphia, north carolina, carolina, they did not have them in 2016 but they do now and then well have robust audits statewide in georgia and michigan and virginia. We didnt have that 2016 that is a remarkable improvement we have done a better job to secure those actual infrastructures that we are more secure in 2020 than we have ever been. Voters are not necessarily absorbing the security and integrity of the system know election and is without risk. Because its very important they all have access to the system. We can build a house with no doors and no windows so we are trying very hard to build a system and then to be sure we have done a good job in this november expanded mail voting i anticipate there will be a record for every ballot cast those mail Voting Service it is a very effective option but it may not be the best one the one thing we have to remember the president ial election the largest number of infrequent voters show up to vote primary ccing much more familiar with the system they are much more likely to make errors and those that could be prone then cause the vote to be rejected. Thats not going to save us in and of itself with the stress to the system and we should expect a lot of in person voting. And then to blow away every record and in the primary but 800,000 and people still showed up to vote in person other polling places. We will need to have ample opportunity and they need to be different than we experience in the past because of covid and accommodate social distancing that itself is not a bad thing it may be a good thing and maybe there are more places people can vote than one single place may be a vote center and we have to figure out how to accommodate that. We need to figure out how to make that work in thats coworkers getting enough people to volunteer it is such an important job i cannot recommend more to those who are watching this please volunteer. We will need millions of poor workers in november every election official has a challenge. Also with Voter Education and to have a different voting experience they will see different options or different deadlines different locations in the polling places those all need to be expressed over time. Requesting thingsa mailin ballot, going out and returning it early or voting in person if thats best. The fewer people did show up in the afternoon is going to be best for everyone, officials, everyone. Thats what we are seeing overall and im fairly optimistic that the messages mes getting through to officials from the fight scene. A quick question, some have reflected on this in terms of preparation and planning, first of all how do people find out and when do they need to apply because here we are already 100 days else we should be getting back now. It varies by state but in general in most places you can apply now. The best single place to go is the National Association of created a website called canivote. Org particularly in this state its important to go to official sources for information and i recommend you go to someplace like age, there is a button you can click to volunteer and it will take you to the appropriate site, but if you know which county you live and you can go to the county election site and volunteer directly. Officials are very busy depending with the schedule is. What the schedule is. Theres been a primary is coming up in august. But definitely try to volunteer. Thats the best way to do it and plan as well as possible so they can get you trained earlier. A little bit of practical advice on how to do these things. Susan, along with other brookings colleagues, you have an activity going on related to voting. I know you have a Research Project thats under way and to address some of the things being raised here but youve been working very closely with the legal aspects of this, and i wonder if you might share with everybody some of the things youve shared with us in preparation for this event and then anything on whats being said here because theres a lot of complexity in the issues surrounding death of his ways of her colleagues have devised how we can tackle this. I think you are still on mute. Label on mute myself. If i could put it varies by state i think that is a good motto. Theres a lot of confusion and misunderstanding about the law surrounding elections and in particular federal. To understand that, there is a way to understand what happens in advance and then to govern what happens after with any questions raised. So when we think about the federal plus some issues and states, there is a misunderstanding simultaneously so we have a lot of assertions and fear about the federal government getting involved and achieving an election but they fail to understand they are fundamentally and constitutionally under state control. The constitution says it determines the time, place and manner and they occur overweight from acidification which is limited involvement. Really it is the states relying on some degree of federal support. That is one thing that there is a misunderstanding and the degree of federal control and at the same time the second part to the qualls is that congress can change anything related to the time except where you choose your senator and so one thing i completely share in the efforts into that sort of general increased posture that we have seen over the past three years. There are things which we have to be candid or have been missed opportunities so we do need a plan to go into this but a resilient space model planning for some kind of failure to order a hand deciding what we do at that point. One is congress hasnt managed to pass comprehensive Bipartisan Legislation because the bills but provided additional funding and this is sort of a baffling thing because there is large bipartisan agreement on the core issues and one of the various republicans and democrats really do agree on the big stuff and somehow we havent managed to get over the little stuff and i think that leaves us sort of more vulnerable. The other thing we should notice they are having a conversation right now fundamentally about denial. When you talk about the nationstate behavior, and ultimately we are mostly focused on the nationstate threat here, we talk about the tools of deterrence that are not hard security, sort of how do we secure against attacks we are thinking about the traditional diplomacy, foreign policy, coercive diplomacy. But sending a message on an incredible message to other countries that dont even try. One isnt going to work because they secure the system that you wilbut youwill see through the f you do and i dont think that has successfully occurred over the last three years so it does leave us in this moment and its a conversation about the model. I sort of share the view and idea that a foreign country will be able to change the outcome and we arent going to know it, it is a relatively low risk. We need to be focused on the possibility of a foreign adversary or nonstate adversary doing something that gives a degree of uncertainty. Some sort of situation which a reasonable good faith expert can say i have 90 confidence in the outcome and what happens if an adversary can even get 10 of or 5 , the election lawyers will do the rest. We have a naturally adversarial system that is designed to take that uncertainty and amplify it and i do think this is a moment we need to start thinking about what our the legal mechanisms of what would occur and how would we go about disabling questions in the event of an adversary that sort of insert this degree of uncertainty. And ultimately, that is a state law question. Its 50 states with radically different laws. People are members of the 2000 hanging chad debacle. Shouldnt be in thi and just understanding thinches butundert needs to occur at this point certainly educating voters that we need to be more patient. Mailin ballots take a long time. It resets the way we need to communicate on these issues. But also to understand, the rules in florida operate this way. The rules and ohio operate this way and that is part of the reinforcing institutional messaging to the public that we do have a system that is sophisticated and robust enough to tackle the questions head on. If there is some kind of concern we dont just need to hide them. We do have mechanisms to settle these issues and to start thinking about how and what the variation looks like across the state. A little bit in the idea that something will happen or something is likely to happen and how are we going to get to a place from there in which the American Public has confidence in the court of democracy and the ideas we do conduct free and fair elections. We are getting a lot of realtime questions. I think at this point that you are making a on the complexity it isnt the whole system or a kind of onesizefitsall. Some of the questions and concerns people have about a foreign adversary messing with the system, it would be difficult to manage the systems simultaneously, and i think you have to go and dont worry we thank him for his contributions before he has to leave. [inaudible] dot what are the and order you would know something was afoot therbut theres a lot of people asking questions here about worrying even our allies might try to use elections as a countervailing effort to end also to see some sort of benefit from electoral outcomes. Is it possible to mess with Voting Machines come is it possible to mail a week of mess with the mailing system . Is the mailing system and Postal Service the best way, or an attack from the foreign adversary. If this complexity helps us to impact avoid some of the problems people are most concerned about. So it seems yes this complexity could be advantageous in the same time that it makes the tribulations in the whole process more convoluted. This is a true tension at the heart of this in advance of 2016. We know if each individual might not be fully secure, but there are thousands of systems and the reality is if any one individual in the United States knew the percentage and thats the number of votes they would need to change to change the outcome of president ial Elections Come of as president would be making millions of dollars as a political consultant. There is an entire industry in the United States that works 24 hours a day, seven days a week every single day of the year whether it is election year. So the idea that there is a foreign adversary that is able to sort of take this point of interference and actually change the outcomes in some sort of predictable way, i do think that complexity decreases that possibility. With that said, i dont think we should be patting ourselves on the back saying dont worry, there are 10,000 different ways. That helps to the extent you are concerned about the big question is can somebody else changed the outcome but when we think about this issue of introducing the uncertainty, any amount of additional complexity is added into the system especially that people are not accustomed to that does become an opportunity to raise questions potentially to amplify questions and i know the next panel is related to this information and there are legitimate questions to ask. With that said, i do think that its incumbent to be clear with the American Public that there is no evidence in 2016 that any vote was changed. The Senate Intelligence committee released a comprehensive report that really shed a lot of an omission about what happened and gave people a vote of confidence in sort of thinking about how can we translate and i think that heavy degree of reliability that we got in 2016 although notably not until 2018 and how can we create a system in which the government is forming the conversation in a way that is transparent and has institutional capabilities of the public can have confidence. In the discussion we had ahead of the panel the issues we get so fixated on if we all listen about everybody getting out and voting, there would be much less room for these kind of errors having an effect because thats where you have a low turnout in certain precincts where it creates some of the opportunities to have a lot of these various outcomes. You might want to see a little bit about that, susan. The potential crisis is playing out against a backdrop of the participation. We are talking about the sort of disinformation and influence operations, things that are hard to sort of get hard forensic evidence about the actual impact on things like that. Thats stuff that can create real questions you are not able to answer when the margins of victory are in the hundreds of thousands or tens of thousands spread across the various counties with a 30 Participation Rate you will always have those that kind of look like that, so if we were in a country that had much higher Voter Participation margins it doesnt solve the problem. That said it does have this disinformation propaganda question and i think each issue needs to be confronted in its own bucket and its a comprehensive effort here to secure elections and in the minds of the American Public thats one thing if people are wondering what they can do and how they can do their part is making sure people vote i think that it would get us to a much healthier Security Posture much faster. Theres a lot of thing you are doing with your organization as well. We are thinking back on the Civil Rights Movement and last year the amendment that gave women the right to vote and in other countries were sometimes in this context today you hear people talk about being able to vote this is a fundamental agency we have as citizens and everybody should really get out there and vote and do their part. We are getting some questions and hear from the audience which is something you will be pleased to hear about donors. People who have the means and want to play an active role in our concerned about the integrity getting people out to vote, both can be done now thinking about how can they help to improve Election Security for 2020 and doing research and various things as well is there anything there could be publicprivate partnerships or are there other Funds Available for this kind of activity for what can people do not just showing up to vote and monitor but theyve actually got some funds to spend in this publicprivate context. So, we are very close to the election, less than four months away and many, the technology is pretty much locked in place. One of the things i would recommend is its most useful not to File Lawsuits or argue a change in election technology. In fact, that kind of change and chaos could have a detrimental effect on voters and jurisdictions. There are some thats the bad news and thats quick. The good news is theres still opportunities on them. There is an audit thats going to lead the way to a statewide audit in november. This primary is coming up with other pilot opportunities. And again, more good news is many states are already moving in that direction. They are trying to get better and better and more audits and we are going to see more than weve ever seen before by an exponential factor in november. That is all very, very good news. You know, i think the biggest thing the funders can do right now, and he goes to susans last point which was such an excellent point, the goal of many adversaries right now is to diminish citizens confidence in our elections and one of the things they like to see, one of the things for people to opt out and back in the United States we talk about the perspective where the turnout of over 60 is very rare and turnout of over 50 of hers once every four years. All others have below 50 of eligible turnout in the United States and thats been going on for quit quite sometime and if u look at the turnout outside of the president ial elections, most turnout has been declining over some blip in the radar, 2018 being one of them. But thats a challenge, and its absolutely true we fight back against our adversaries and participate when wtoparticipateh its also true tactically as well. Every single vote is a data point. Every single interaction with election offices is a data point. If someone interferes in the Voter Registration database is every time you check the registration date others an opportunity to catch the problem. Every time someone was to intercept the mailin ballots and try to go to them, every time the real coworker real vote would be an opportunity to catch the person. There are so many checks and balances that is virtually impossible. I dont thin say impossible buts virtually impossible to change the outcome in a way that would be undetected. But there are ways in which an adversary can interfere in a way that would be detected and intended to be detected and cause chaos. If you look at the illinois Voter Registration database intrusion of 2016, that is exactly what that looks like. Depression gre was sitting inside the database for to the undetected, getting low rates so they wouldnt be detected for about two weeks and they were not being noticed and played before the president ial conventions were to start they started accessing information at thousands of times more greater effort at that point so in such a way the illinois Election Officials said there is no way they couldnt detect if its sucked up all the bandwidth and they shut it down right away. I think its reasonable they were trying to be at that point. They wanted it to be known they were inside of the registration database. Illinois also not a swing state in the president ial election it was just a database they could get into. Second, voting is the key. So how do the funders and others encourage more voting that is going to be the key. They released a report last month, my organization about the decline in the Voter Registration as a result of the pandemic because people were not going to the Motor Vehicle agencies anymore. To help them reach their potential voters and educated official information is going to be the key. I found a separate nonprofit called the Electronic Registration Information Center at 30 states now belong to him to help them reach out to eligible but nonregistered citizen and encourage them to register to vote and 20 to 25 million or contact and by the states themselves, states of texas and georgia and michigan, kentucky and florida all doing that and around september of 2020. This kind of efforts can be encouraged and anything that can get more official information to voters to get them to engage is probably the best use of resources at this point. That is a great point. Are there any restrictions on this . As you were speaking i was thinking about when people into supermarkets often obviously people are collecting various things but there are restrictions on private sector Voter Registration is that the case . It has to be in an official setting. So, theres a lot of opportunities in the Voter Registration i think the practical limitation is probably more restrictive than the legal ones given the pandemic and social distancing. There are significant restrictions that can occur, and it varies by state, on the publicprivate partnerships and some have the ability to partner to assist in the efforts and others are using the funds for that. I know a constant in talking with a lot of states they are trying to find ways to navigate the system so they can manage it. There are a lot of highly responsible vendors out there representing a wide view, wide variance of the political views who are trying to assist in this regard and trying to connect those in the right way and make it legal is something i know many others are working on. Host having the right to citizenship i think that is a very good point youve made. Im going to go back to mark all of the questions weve had really related to where you were working and the resilience when you were a senior director of the National Security council. We have questions about the risks, the physical infrastructures were talking about. One question coming in if you were thinking like a terrorist and interpreting the voter process, and thinking in exactly the same way that the scare tactic would you consider the power grid which the network requires to function visit worried about this kind of bridge system very vulnerable, weve seen the lockout to blackouts and all kinds of things one might think about. Watching what just happened in russia all the people may have noticed putin has put himself back in the picture of having these amendments that would allow him to run for the two more president ial terms and they opened up the voting beyond because they were worried about the points weve been talking about, low turnout and legitimacy of the voting. They were worried about the environment and getting as many different kinds of people voting as possible over the various landscape in russia is the largest territorial land mass in the country so they made this an ongoing process and its been remarked on because they needed a legitimate vote and large enough turnout to say he had the general backing of these amendments. Clearly we want to have more people out there so to this question about pulling out the process and what there would have been if there was a major disruption, we talked about before and chris has mentioned hurricanes and weather events and storms out just a terrorist disruptions, but mother nature. What can we do to address them and what have they already done to address them . A lot of what has already been done to address them, theres been a dramatic increase in early voting that has taken hold across the country over the last two decades. Decades. To the point where we are all talking about the election being four months away it is pretty much from today. Inperson early voting will start in the middle of september. I think the earliest will be about september 18 or so. And its instructive to think about what has transpired in the country in the last 45 days and think about god and what can transpire in the 45 days in between the civil rights november 3. The end goal of the adversary is not to elect a particular candidate. They might have one they prefer and might not. The end goal of russia and china is recognizing the way our system functions and removing that. They want to remove the consent of the government. Its the exact same reason that they target other elements of our Critical Infrastructure because if they can take out a power grid, if they can take out a gas line, it shows that the government isnt capable of protecting the American People from those sort of things. It removes our trust in the government to do that. Weve done a very good job of removing the trust of the government and the politics which is a close close frankly i think the performance within the pandemic over the last four months has removed even more. And that is a massive vulnerability we have. No matter what technology is used for voting and what happens on election day, but we need to recognize it as a 45 day window that weve got right now and people are going to be voting based on different information. I had a boss that always liked to get the story of how four days before the election in 1992, ross perot went on national tv [inaudible] it didnt tell a lot about george h. W. Bush had a total of about ross perot and the thought process at the time and that might have changed peoples mind. You thinbut think back to 45 dao and look at where president s from the federal government, any one of our major institutions was, thats where it is right now, given those 45 days, think about doing that at the very start you have a very fluid found on which we are going to hold this and whatever the result, however it comes out we have to recognize the consent of the governed is what is at the core of any argument here and thats going to happen from the political process argument and the legal argument especially if we get into cases where we have a system that is built for blowouts and it is to be able to say we have a 10,000 or 20,000 vote margin. When it gets down to the narrow ones like we saw in florida for 527 votes at the end of the day you could have a problem, but it is doable. For the 527 nobody recognizes what we havent really talked a lot about this 380 some odd votes they have the process and went through the battle. So how particular judges ruled on some of those changes and dynamic changes may have to be changed. Fullstochanged from 5 days because it is going to set the foundation for what challenges post election might actually happen and once the lawyers come in and there was reporting because it is looking at about 20 million worth of. We will have a lot of that going on because that is how things actually happen. Im sitting a couple miles away from ground zero in new york right now. It is a primary september 11, 2001. They rescheduled. That goes through a Legal Process a judge has to sign off on at some point. They get extended for the weather or transportation challenges were infrastructure destruction. Theres a lot of ways to do that and as chris said at the top, Election Officials or risk managers because they deal with it every time. They even mentioned the doj in the civil rights predictability is. Its set up for every single election in 1964 to look at the civil rights challenge is actually pop up so there are ways to provide realtime changes in a 45 day window. The question is what level of control they have on that and how is it administered and can we do that in a fair way and every state has different and what is there goin the going toe foundation for in the post election tied to recognize weve got about three weeks worth of time to certify those results. And thats also in the current environment of the amount of time between a mass gathering and. So whats going to happen in the intervening three the bible tremendous public pressure on the officials and the legal system to interpret the rule in a way that will fit and ensure that the governed have choices that are made. Thank you. We are coming up to the next panel so i will just turn back to david and susan endowed anything more on that. I will give an indication of some of the other questions that have come up. Thereve been so many and i havent been able to touch on them. In one way or another i think weve already answered some of these. Im going to do afterwards as i mentioned, i will share all of the questions with you and i know there will be more events at brookings and david will be giving events as well. Hopefully we will be able to publicize these so that over the course of time, all these questions will no doubt get addressed in one way or another. Some worry that the attacks on the Vaccine Research has just been reported in some of these others like the attacks on twitter the inside role could be indicating similar things and its just getting people worried about hacking and the damage that can be done. Weve had a lot of questions about the weakest link and i think some of it is voter turnout saying the margins get very small and very tight depending on which precincts as the best systems for ensuring the audits or legal challenges where the margins are very tight. But david and susan, is there anything you would like to leave everybody with before we go to the next panel on the specific c issues of information i will just give a very brief policy wont plea and thats to say all the issues we are talking about here rests on top of systemic issues that are not sold in the 100 a day. Those are one of the challenges is that elections are run every single mom, every single day of the year and every single month of the year throughout the country with hundreds of thousands of times. Getting the publics attention and mustering up the kind of political will that is going to be necessary to make the longterm systemic changes to things like changing the States Relationship with vendors and having mandatory federal Cyber Security standards. All these things are critical to get to the question of the consent to govern, democratic legitimacy, electoral legitimacy to the to the extent you are concerned about this as we are looking at the next election, also think about how to translate that into advocating for the kind of policy changes that might not necessarily helps your perceived candidate, you know, in november, but that are going to address the longterm questions. Now is the time to start picking up the phone and calling your senators, getting yourself educated on the bread and butter reform thats going to be necessary otherwise every four years we will be back here having the same sort of conversation about how do we make things better that the margin of. I did that very briefly. We have to remember our adversaries are targeting the confidence and they win whenever and whatever the political perspective is, they lose confidence and feel like your Voice Matters less for some reason and arguments abound those are coming from the political spectrum on the right and the left are making arguments about why we should trust the outcome and i think that its important for the prospective of all of us as citizens to be aware of the confirmation bias and the media silos we all reside in and we are getting information that tells us that we are right and it feels good to be right. But when those messages are telling us they should trust the other partys Election Officials or we shouldnt trust the other partys voters because they are trying to undermine democracy, that message is actually serving an antidemocratic process. Its not about the Democratic Party versus republican party, it is about hypocrisy versus democracy and they should be skeptical of messages that tell us we should trust our Democratic Institutions in circumstances. Susan is right there is a lot of work to do and its going to go well beyond the 2020 election. We are not perfect or across the finish line on the other hand we need to have confidence in our democracy and elections and be looking for, you know, hopefully on november 4 year old going to be saying that was great, but a Great Success by republican and democratic officials to run an election that would be a lot better than getting angry. Of it is the perfect segue for the next session. Thank you because part of the issue we are dealing with here is our own polarization and propensity for information impetus for the next panel is going to talk about. I do want to thank all of you for coming and playing this out in a very clear way. The communications and transparency and its important for everybody involved in this process. To commend you on the great work you are all doing. Organizations like this i hope we can come to a partnership with bookings and our partners as well as we get back in other brookings colleague is going to moderate the next session. Chris is the Deputy Director here at brookings is in charge of the Artificial Intelligence and emerging Technology Work so it may be complex and complicated. So over to you. I think that we have a good setting for a next session. Thanks a lot. Thank you for the introduction and for hosting such a wonderful panel. I cant imagine a better more important discussion by such incredible colleagues and i would echo for the viewers at home i would echo the call to the informed and active. They are now going to build on that conversation by focusing not just on the security of the ballot box but also by focusing on the information environment atlarge particularly with respect to disinformation and operations. So we are going to be looking not just at infrastructure of american minds and how we need to secure. As part of that conversation, we are thrilled to be joined by three amazing coffee. The first of them is a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund and the director of the alliance for security democracy and previously served in a variety of roles in the state department and National Security council. She is by far one of the sharpest minds i know of in these operations and we are delighted to having her join. Second, we also have david joining us, a local at facebook where he works on disinformation and previously served as the director of intelligence for National Security. And we are delighted to have him with us today to share his expertise. And last but not least we have alina, president and ceo for the european policy analysis of previously was a wonderful a scholar in the foreignpolicy program. Welcome to come. It is a pleasure to have you with us again. Without further ado i think we can go ahead and dive right in. I want to talk about exactly, why the information is important, but got us to this point. Alina, since you are one of the first analysts to start writing about this disinformation, i wondered if you could talk a little bit about the role of the Russian Disinformation Campaign originally and what happened in 2018 and what led us to the point were at now. Guest delete the thank you so much, chris. Its wonderful to be on at least a Virtual Panel and see all of you and see some familiar faces, former callings from brookings oslo. Just get directly to your question, while for me, you asked about [inaudible] obviously most americans only woke up to the problem of the information problem in the context of the elections in 2016 when now the very wellknown russian activities and social media and elsewhere, which are again in the news just this week, and i hope we will get to talk about the recent reported Cyber Attacks on the washington unit, the same unit involved in the hal hack and dump operationn 2016. So they are still at it so to say. An interesting talk about the research for that, but taking back the clock a little bit, to know what is happening in 2014, some of you may remember, the close of revolution in ukraine, and at that time i was living in your and spent a long time working in ukraine for Research Purposes and i started to notice a sort of skewed narrative emerge in what was happening in ukraine on the ground. If i was on the ground, so i knew that reality and what was being reported for different and what was really kind of seeping into even the top English Media at the time were misinformed narratives around this idea that what is happening in ukraine wasnt a democratic revolution from a subset of a fascist coup and that of course is something that is familiar to me. It was a typical kremlin media narrative and i was surprised to see it being reproduced in some form in english language and also german language media at the time. That is to make up for since the russian propaganda, which we called it back then, was a bigger issue than i thought. At the time i thought it just wasnt an issue having to do with ukraine. States with ukraine, georgia, estonia, las vegas has been the targets of russian propaganda and misinformation are a very long time and were pretty familiar with it and knew how to deal with it to a certain extent. What was new is the narratives were now appearing and seeping into the main stream englishlanguage media. Thats when i thought this is a real problem. But quickly i realized in dc, it wasnt anywhere on the radar of the policymakers because i think we tend to think that would have been somewhere over there in Eastern Europe is going to stay somewhere over there in Eastern Europe. But by the time 2016 rolls around, those of us that have spent time looking at what the russians have been doing in ukraine, i cant say that i wasnt surprised. I was absolutely surprised at the brazen nature of the influence operations for the russians carried out in 2016, but not by the tactics. The tactics are very similar to what we have seen the russians basically test in ukraine previously. All of that came to the United States in 2016 and other European Countries after that and basically around every single event that the russian government sees every election now has an influence Operations Component behind it. And of course now 2020 is truly the reality we are living in. I think its hard to imagine an election today in which we dont have to be concerned about our pouring thoughts. I wonder if you could talk a bit more about that and you mentioned the russian hack earlier but what are you seeing now that you are concerned with . My biggest concern is actually not rush and what i mean by that is of course now this toolkit and the broad influence that extends beyond the information environment has been out there for a Long Time Coming and because there hasnt been a focused Strategic Response to counter and they too are these kind of operations other states have already been using these toolkits in various ways and im sure david can talk about that from the perspective of some of the work facebook has in the takedown but even beyond that, my concern is we havent even built with the russia problem and now we have the china problem and iran and north korea. Basically any nonstate actor that has some sort of steak or profit driving incentive to be involved in an event that has a lot of eyes on it. Its why theres such incredible opportunities for the state actors like political agendas and even nonstate actors that have the profit or economic agendas. My biggest concern is we have seen a profound evolution of the tactics because as we have identified and exposed how these operations work especially on social media, the adversaries have adapted. Weve seen at least from the russian activities in countries in africa and also Eastern Europe is that they are getting much better at obfuscating the origins. In 2016 in a way it was easier to attribute and identify these campaigns because as most people recall, they were being rushed out of st. Petersburg at the time, the socalled triple spaced there and they gave a very powerful data points to be able to attribute when you could easily traced back the account where they were originating and now they know that theyve been testing in other parts of the world has been blending in with domestic voices and franchising the south to the local actors and this kind of Information Warfare by proxy is much more difficult for us to identify and expose. I think that is just one of them to be honest with you. The other one that i wouldnt be surprised that its difficult to know what is happening is the filtration of community groups, whether they are on facebook, other social media and the fact we dont have much insight in what is happening we dont have any insight into what is happening they are not subject to the same kinds of transparency and value principles that i think are very much indebted to be more committed to those values and principles. Now we have dozens of bad actors to deal with. I think that you have raised a dozen points. Youve been doing a tremendous amount and i wonder if you can give your sense of whats happening and why is it important when many of the viewers think of these operations is a russian issue but clearly the its broader than that now. [inaudible] i think that it gets to that order subset of information. Today manipulation is a tool seen as influencing state power and as noted they are adding to them and to see the control and manipulation they are afraid of information and see it as something they need to recognize to the advantage and as weve outlined, moscow has advanced the tactics to do that in a way that others want to see intimate social media operation they have a long history. What we have seen has been a little bit different. If we were having this conversation a year ago i would have told you when it comes to information regulation the goal was largely aimed at the mh creating and amplifying unwanted narratives as well as organizations that didnt want to have a voice. It is pretty distinct and it isnt trying to sell itself to the world as a rising power. Its a big part of that strategy. What we have seen over the past year and accelerating during covid has been interned in a far more aggressive election by the actors of the information states. A couple things that are indicative to this, the first is that weve seen a lot of what people gthepeople of the world r tactic. The chinese official [inaudible] Media Outlets much like the kind of stuff that goes viral and has a big following. We have seen a whole lot of that. Weve seen also begin to happen also with the development and greater use of incentives this is about a couple of things. The second was about the origin of the virus. We saw multiple narratives by state officials and media as oversimplified networks it was very similar to. Did they say what created ourselves, who knows but there are a lot of similarities and the first time that we saw the actors engaging in this confusion and chaos. The other thing that is notable about what china is doing is a lot of content is aimed to look at the chaos in the u. S. Theres other democracies [inaudible] that was the basic tagline. This is a whole new kind of tactic from chinese officials. The last thing i would say i think its important and we only have so much time but its important in particular to understand what china is doing [inaudible] it is about creating a different information although they did a model. The information model they have seen had believed the state should be able to invest in these systems and center to make sense fo. The center content andy to filter things around the world. They do that with infrastructure and governance of information so as a part of the foreign strategy i think its important if we think about the challeng challenges. Thats incredibly helpful. I want to come back to that point about information of democracy versus the authoritarian regimes. I do want to just quickly followefollowup on a point thatn a foreign owned social media like tiktok has been in the news. Is that something that is part of the effort or in the u. S. We would separate hell did you see that relationship . The platform is increasingly big as a part of the conversation and when i saw the impression of her aspect when it comes to tiktok, it goes back to argue fully independent from the chinese government. We could have a long conversation about what it means in china and the laws governing access to data as well as the fact all organizations have to have [inaudible] within their company they are immediately put on the list. On tiktok, theres been a lot of that. I think some of the commentary missed a couple of things. One, we dont have a transparent sense of whats happening. We need a transparency report for whatever that is worth, but the ability to have greater insight in a lot of different ways. They dont have an understanding of whats happening. The Data Collection pieces, i think it is understood a little bit. Facebook and google are not collecting systems for data and i have concerns about that, but there is a distinction there between the way private companies that dont have the ability or otherwise. In china that is the reality. Theres a big distinction. Number two is that i remember having conferences about tiktok a couple years ago. Like whats the problem, video sharing, its just fun, theres nothing on there. It doesnt matter. There were all these platforms eventually with new applicatio applications. There was nthat is the reason ty exception to the rule. The platform is algorithmically driven in a total blackbox of what is and even appearing on the platform takedown as though they think about it in facebook. That needs to be done holistically as we can definitely take action. I want to come back to you with that idea of the democratic model first i want to turn it over to david to hear what they have been talking about in the Information Space its harder to attribute the information campaign. What are the trends you are seeing does that resonate with you . Its a timely time to talk about all this stuff focus on the coordination and these types of operations as well as thinking through those scenarios of what new tactics as they evolve and adapt from different platforms over real timely question that they touched on those tactics so the first thing i wanted to call out is this conversation that was back in government focused heavily on foreign interference because the election just happens with the Research Agency and then to target the dnc. As we conducted our Enforcement Actions and what we have used these deceptive tactics are deceptive in nature. They originate within the country of where they are targeting and those who understand the language and the culture. It has created an interesting challenge. Foreign domestic agnostic. Pretty much equally using the same tactics but the conversation how we should approach this legislatively brackets into the foreign conversation. We see that trend increase as time goes on looking for domestic operations the security of these networks has improved considerably because as we and other platforms take action we learn from the ways that they discover so parallel as they had become more effective at hiding it complicates the ability to reach a broader audience so in addition to becoming better at hiding their activity on a specific platform is distributed across minimum platforms. It is relatively straightforward so the content that the post goes away. And with the social media side we also see an increased reliance on authentic communities to enable these operations the best example is from the ira to target the United States but also to give them one more step for what was really happening. The last piece, trend perspective we saw in the midterm elections the goal of these is to undermine Public Confidence and democratic systems we see in operation and 29 2018 to get people to believe our political system and political discourse online is wholly controlled and undermined by russian actors we call this perception acting internally the challenge that presents as a platform to counterclaim the widespread interference you have to be transparent so that when there are extraordinary claims and then to help clarify with the evidence those are some of the main trends we have been seeing. Line of those evolution is the ecosystem approach with the cost line coordination it also highlights the issue that was raised we are not seeing the same coordinated response but that is increasingly and to reverberate youtube and instagram and media and the more subversive like read it or gab they would not see that and to the extent thats not really possible to discuss one way that comes out is the policies we have seen and how the platforms are responding and for some content might twitter and that allows that we pull and to continue those operations to be continued out responding in these other ways. That we do want to get to the policy side of the question so i would be curious to know more of the sector anything with facebook internally to address the information on this platform if you could speak to that and that would be great. Of course. For main ways to address the trend at the top in the first we have deliberately scoped our policies to focus on deceptive behaviors. Even if we cannot attribute to a specific individual and that addresses those foreign domestic problem and addresses the challenge of attribution to become harder it is the network dad is misleading then we can take action. The second piece to the Cross Platform with information sharing is the Important Pillar of the work. And there has been a couple of examples with the iranian operations where we might find in operation to share information about that network and then we will see another takedown may be at the exact same time. That cycle of information and sharing can help us get our arms around with that multi societal threat. The last piece to hit on one of the benefits the operations were in the battle space we cannot control. And with that platform to make those with that leveraging aspect of the platform. In the ad may locations. And then to become public. And with the benefits in this space is it forces you and to take a bunch of steps to build the infrastructure that you need and the second part of that and then to build more resilience and working with partners and broader society. And now leaving those broader communities. At the outset to mention secondary infection that the British Government just mentioned and in may of 2019 our investigative teams to uncover that secondary infection and when we did that a completely different operation in 2016 and 2017 and that. To create personas and then and that may 2019. To be far more sophisticated across multiple platforms and the goal seem to be more and amplification of forged documents depending on the time we are looking at. The secondary infection and disclosures where things became the Effective Response with our partners that graphic a and does excellent work and then we can take what we shared with them and then to identified over 300 websites and then to pull the curtain back across the entire ecosystem so that combination Public Disclosure and then partnerships with researchers to pull all of the threads together from multiple platforms gets to a place where we can get our arms around these complex regulations. And to appreciate the information sharing within the private sector but also curious on your thoughts and what needs to happen from a policy perspective. And its really important. Government and with the adversaries and to share information that one of the things is that that we dont want the government on social media. But domestically but at the end of the day but with that type of information in the government sees happening from foreign actors. And we have made progress on that. But unfortunately in my view then i have some concerns of the protections and sharing information between the government and the private sector. On with selfregulation the regulatory conversation about whether platforms are biased. And was certain kind of people so the real conversation we need to be having that not the vast majority of us in this phase are talking about that actually when you talk about data and frankly if you look the difference between the democratic model and the authoritarian model. And how we think about that. But the conversation that needs to be happening we need to be having those conversations about security and dad is significant and know that sounds like a bigger conversation but actually the data feedback to service the information so i think when it comes to regulation its not necessarily about the platform itself so what is this look like . And as democracies. So in the last thing i will say that the one thing that i do not think should be up for regulation is i do not believe like terrorism or violent extremism i do not believe any democracy but the good news is the majority of the challenges there is a lot of mutual ways to look at that challenge. And then to moderate and that is their right. And one of the key questions and then with that type type of governance that youre talking about. I will turn it over to use with that policy and framework. But the point is so important because we are talking about disinformation and influences the preferred term that once you actually start to think about what we do about it we cannot get away from having a much broader discussion on the agenda. And the problem looking at specific case studies for example its pretty and even to come up with the golden goose with the Regulatory Environment but the big issue has been a focus on an illegal content to expand the definition with things we can all agree should not be in the Public Domain like child pornography extreme violence or terrorism or things of that nature but most disinformation doesnt fit into that category but we have seen from a lot of European Countries a desire to push that agenda to expand the illegal content with the free speech laws with European Countries are much less expansive version. So what i see happening working together with democracies is so critical the internet is not bound by National Borders so the Regulatory Framework cannot adjust what we are talking about but the problem where we are today is we have a hodgepodge regulation coming from all over europe and the European Commission to come up with the regulatory agenda and then the United States that are quite misguided with antitrust to be the panacea but it wont be. But what i see now is a huge risk of merging and with regulation and then depending on what happens in november that we to come to some middle ground and with that agenda and a lot of ideas out there that have been out there for years but were just not getting there. Thats we need to be looking toward the private sector and to civil a line and Civil Society to have input with the regulatory agendas. And as part of that so im putting the question but theres not a single example i am getting some things right but we havent seen a comprehensive approach to this. One of the things weve seen this week what the Trump Administration has authorized within the information and campaign and im curious there is one issue of defending the attacks and im curious if thats in line with what a democracy should be doing. Very quickly i will say we do need to be on the offensive to build resilience. But that doesnt mean that they do what we do and they do it to them. That is what is happening here and then do Different Things and to build a coherent front the democratic Digital Domain as a value that is universally desired we need to see that as an asset. And as afghan happens is not incorrect we need to get out of the whack a mole approach. But the followthrough is not the right one. Adversaries and competitors e have a formative author if we are constantly on the defensive, we are not necessarily up to something but also either we are responding in a symmetric way that is to our disadvantage so we need an affirmative agenda of what we want to achieve and go from there and that means a couple of things. Not just because it is the right thing from a moral perspective but because in the context between the democratic models, living our values, we cant win if we do not live our values so that is one big piece of it. The other piece again given the asymmetry are you ever going to win in a faceoff in a race to the bottom is definitely not us. We also [inaudible] in terms of the vulnerability in our infrastructure we start to open this can of worms we are the ones most likely so about the authorized edition i think it is the wrong kind of thing. I do think that maybe they need to get away from this because it isnt always clear whats what but they do need to be assertive and one of the papers i wrote my colleague she uses a parallel thaavenues around the contested territory and she talks about the freedom of Information Operations where we used this openness in an offensive way than the authoritarian competitors and use the information again but in that way dot as it is organized but we do need to find a way to harvest the information. Were almost out of time so i want to have one last kind of lightning round and go around to each of you. If there is one kind of take away for the audience concerned about this information in the next election, what would you say are there things we should be concerned about and proactively doing . Just to clarify is it we as individuals . Lets say we as individuals but if you wanted to governance, feel free to go government if you would rather go there. This may sound a bit cliche, but i do think that having critical information is part of the citizens responsibility. I dont think we given that we live in a Digital World where they have informational time and it may seem they are asking people to do too much and certainly there is a role for governments and the private sector have to play to do the hard work to figure out what is a legitimate story and what is not in the algorithms they have no control over, but i do think that when you are on social media are in the case of some of the members in my family, getting email chains, they are a huge way some share rating content especially perhaps some of my parents generation. When we receive content, look at this first before you share it and dont immediately just share something because of the headline. Dont immediately assume that its true because its online, and i do think a lot of people dont take the time. Take a deep breath before they click or before they click a share or like. If its coming from your cousin or someone you know, that in itself doesnt mean its accurate. And just taking a moment to think about a lot of this kind of quick beta stuff does this confirm the things from the past from major outlets, but i think the big issue here outside of the scope of this discussion is the fact that very much an increasingly we are living in a very different reality in the country and that very much overlaps the kind of polarization and economic inequalities we are seeing, the generational inequalities, people in one type of community have a completely different interpretation of events and some people ar were living in another type of community. So, we tend to not see or not want to believe things that dont conform to our worldview so i think we could all use a little bit of openness and understanding even if it may sound ridiculous to us sometimes and to have a little patience instead of judging them immediately for ideas they know not to be true or to strongly disagree with, and i think if we start there, we might go a long way. Thank you, alina. Im going to turn to you and then we will close out with laura. I think thats alinas points are selling it. If theres anything i could add to that, it would be to remember that this proble problem is thee of society problem. That isnt to say we dont have a responsibility to get things right in facebook. We do. Theres a huge responsibility to finding obligations and remove them, but we have to be thinking about how to build resilience in every part of society. Tech companies doing their jobs and keeping them safe on the platforms and the government sharing information when they need to and using weapons of the state to protect their people in the society continues to hold all accountable. The other thing i would say and emphasizes the importance of being careful about speculation around disinformation and operations around elections. I think there is a proclivity to jump to the assumption the person you are disagreeing with is a robot or the candidate you didnt like one because of a troll operation. Something that stuck with me ever since before i joined facebook is a really good brilliant influence operation at carnegie now that wrote a piece about how this is a fun house held up to society. It stuck with me because one of the challenges here is to solve the influence operations problem as best as one can come is to go after the underlining fractures exploited by the campaigns. The ira doesnt create the positions that they attempt to exploit. The solution here is one in which we do need to think about how as individuals we can have the Community Work to manage some of the divides that make us vulnerable to these campaigns. And then maybe the last piece of johns is incredibly important here and we are properly asking questions about where the information is coming from and seeking the information as they come to a conclusion so that is always went out anall i would ad appreciate the opportunity to talk about it with you all. Laura, over to you. [inaudible] im excited to have them validated now. I will be brief. The most important thing people can do, i agree with everything alina and david laid out, but it is a democratic process. The goal is often to make up the integrity sweeney to double down on those positions in whatever way that things but its absolutely essential democracy doesnt have problems if we dont address the challenges that if we donbutif we dont sn weve already lost the battle. I think that is as good a point to end on a. Thank you both for joining us and thank you to the audience for taking part today. Its been a privilege to have the conversation. Thank you. Founder of the project against hate and extremism