Against threats to election infrastructure and voter confidence. The chair is authorized to end the committee to recess. I would like to thank the panel of witnesses systems as well as efforts to undermine voter confidence and faith in democratic institution. So much has changed since this Committee Held its first hearing in 2019, which was two years to really too late. In 2017, as though rest of us was waking up to Great Security threats close to the nation, underfunded and outdated Voting Systems, republicans controlled the house and despite multiple requests to hold hearings on Election Security, the republican chairman largely declined to do so except for a single hearing on threats to elections. Democrats got to work. The Democratic Task force on Election Security work to find solutions. When democrats regained control of the house in 2019, the work accelerated. [indiscernible] at the state levels and building capacity at the federal levels. And other stakeholders to harden floating systems around the country. We made enormous progress. 96 of voters used voter verifiable paper ballots and the results were validated either legitimate booth election audits in every single swing state. Electors called the 2020 election the most secure in american history. It is hard to square that with what happened next. The outgoing president ratcheted up the difference Information Campaign this Information Campaign disInformation Campaign. Despite the obvious of certainty and total lack of evidence, President Trump was somehow able to parlay this message into a campaign so effective that he convinced 145 republican members to vote against certification of the election results. That same day, thousands of trumps some mop the u. S. Capitol with nooses, spray and zip ties and inflicting serious and fatal injuries on Capitol Police officers. We as a nation will be dealing with the fallout from the 2020 election. Election the nihilists are running for denialists running for office that would do nothing more than create another barrier for voters of color to cast their vote. Oppose suggests that one in three voters questioned the legitimacy of the election and one in three Election Officials. Unsafe feel on south feel unsafe in their job. Rather because i believe we are at an inflection point. What terms like Election Security and Election Integrity are being weaponized in ways that i have never seen. As long as we are opening up the proper scope of these terms, let me tell you how i defined Election Security. Making sure that every eligible voter who wants to cast a vote is able to cast it and making sure that the vote is counted as it was cast. Anything that undermines these tenets, whether it is restrictive voting laws for this information or disinformation is a threat to security. I am also profoundly concerned about the fractured state of the information echo system as the ability for media consumers to simply choose their own reality based on facebook groups they join in table moves news outlets they choose to watch. This is a threat to our democracy and i look forward to hearing from this panel to see how we start to build safe democratic institutions. I believe the federal government has a wall to play in confronting the mets and theres information narratives that jeopardizes our faith in Fair Elections and safety. That is why i introduced to attract and address miss and disinformation. The best way to attack a light as with the truth and i hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will join me in supporting the effort to debunk the kind of disinformation that you wrote the democracy. I look forward to a robust discussion. The chair now recognizes the Ranking Member of the subcommittee, the gentleman from europe, mr. Garbarino. Thank you for holding this hearing and i appreciate the witnesses discussing. An examined ways to improve tools and Services Provided by the cybersecurity and infrastructure security. In 2021 our nation experiences a number of and we ended figure the cybersecurity this is not to mention the significant ransomware attack. On top of spikes of cybercrime we are seeing a lack of faith of voters in security stuff we must keep an kenai. Given the volume and sophistication of cyber threats, we must empower the system with the tools it needs to support state and local elector officials. Since this mission is evolving, infrastructure was designated in 2017. Provided free and voluntary Cyber Security and tools. About vulnerabilities initiatives like the crossfeed program are commendable efforts. Crossfeed leverages the best technology to the organizations that help them. You cant secure what you cant see and in this picture as well as programs continue to provide great values value to local officials. We are joined by Matt Masterson who built a background best backbone of trusted relationships. Built a background up of trusted relationships. I look forward to hearing from matt about the practical steps we can take to improve the ability to support officials. I am determined to work with officials to improve cybersecurity posture. We will have a roundtable discussion in my district and since this region two team were present with tools to provide to cybersecurity. I hope we can agree more resources for governments are necessary and we must ensure these funds are spent responsibly. This important bill is a tremendous footstep board step forward. I look forward to hearing from Witnesses Today on how congress can help with security. Thank you and i yield back. I think our Ranking Member thank our Ranking Member for his mobile Opening Statement and the subcommittee will operate according to the guidelines laid out by the chairman and Ranking Member in that february 3 rules regarding remote procedures. I will move us to our panel and if our Ranking Member or chairman arrives, we will hear from the. I welcome the panel of witnesses. I would like to welcome m ms. Ramashandran. Prior to her role at the reading center, she was professor of law at western law at Southwestern Law School in los angeles california. We will hear from he oversaw the electric entirety part itself, a coalition of researchers and other stakeholders working to have a response to election dis information. He also served as the commissioner for the accident and is the chief the former chief of the Security Officer for facebook. We have mr. Ezra rosenberg who served as the codirector of the Voting Rights project at the Lawyers Committee for civil rights under law. He joined the Lawyers Committee in 2014 as special senior counsel in the legal mobilization project continuing a fortyyear career in the public and private sectors. I would like to welcome mr. Matt masterson who serves as a nonresident policy fellow at the stanford observatory. He was a senior cybersecurity advisor at the department of Homeland Security where he focused on Election Security issues. He has served as the commissioner at the Election Assistance Commission and office staff at the or how office. The witnesses. Will be inserted in the record and i asked each witness to summarize his statement for five minutes beginning with miss ramachandran. Date november 20 20 election was considered the most secure in history u. S. History. Taking these steps seriously requires i will cover three topics. I will describe what went right in 2020. The eac voters all played a role with support from congress. I will describe the threat of the election sabotage movement. Lies about the 2020 election not only undermine for confidence but they lead to security risks nav election system. I will address how election infrastructure can be bolstered against the threat with Financial Resources and incentivizing two integrity measures. In 2016, 1 in five voters cast a vote using a Voting System but in 2020, an estimated 96 did paper voting. To alter the outcome of the president ial election. In addition to this crucial move away from the system, share information and public information. In the fall of 2020, some florida voters received 30 emails threatening emails. They alerted Election Officials and held eight joint process to let the public know the truth. Election officials adopted resiliency measures to ensure that voters could exercise their right even when there was sporadic polling places. These options allow voters to spread themselves out along different voting map efforts. Money of congress from congress was crucial. The continued light of the 2020 election was stolen is not only undermining Public Confidence but threatening election infrastructure. Sham protestant reviews decertification and decommissioning Security Breaches have been damaging. Many Election Officials committed to Fair Elections are resigning are being pushed out in the state and marriott attacks. Given that one third of Americans Still believe the big lie, it is unsurprising that some minority of Election Officials and some employees who support their work by into election conspiracy theories. Moneys are being spent in campaigns with election the nihilism denialism. What happens when people fall victim to these falsehoods . We are witnessing this in cop colorado p security risks are a norming but they can be mitigated. Congress can work to combat docketing doxxing. This costs money but congress should have help. It helps to garner a variety of threats and requiring audits and federal elections has received bipartisan support. Our election infrastructure is strong but it is facing a growing antidemocracy threat. Congress can invest in true Election Integrity measures. I think you miss roma chandra and i recognize mr. Stamos to summarize his statement. It is all an honor to be here with these experts. My part today is to talk about election disinformation and about the disinformation around elections that can be tied to attacks against infrastructure. Especially, our findings and what we learned in 2020 and how i think cisa and congress can react. In summer of 2020, we had a team of stamford to work with sis. A. A couple of them were working on disinformation and one of the experiences they had is while they had funding, a lot of the capability to understand and deal with election disinformation did not exist and as a result at stanford, we pulled our friends at washington at the election cancel and be put together the Election Integrity partnership. The goal of the idea was to identify election disinformation and to increase transparency of what happened on 2020. And 2016, there were disinformation events that we didnt understand heres later and years later. We explicitly did not handle any claims about arguments about policy, so if one candidate said the other candidate was a crook, that was out of the scope for us. Our focus was on disinformation. We this is when you do things about lying about a pole location. Participation interferes was trying interference was trying to convince people of knoxville not to vote. Fraud, content to influence people to do something illegitimate and delegitimization. Eip have parsis with partnerships with sessa sisa and thousands of local Election Officials. If you are interested in our results, they are available at eipartnership. Net. I will summarize. The disinformation around the election and the disinformation that led to january 6 was found by a narrative building. People recognized allies of President Trump saying this election is likely to be stolen so the ground was set for months and months of political messaging that this election will be stolen and you should be on the lookout. This led what best to what we call this led to what we call by this information topdown disinformation. You end up with this interesting cycle of the overall guidance of this is what our message is going to be coming from the top a lot of the detail being told in by normal people on social media. The vast majority of the election this mission was from americans. There were a handful of incidents. For the most part, disinformation is an american thing. Most of the content that went viral on social media didnt go viral organically or because of algorithms. It went viral because a small number of verified influencers decided to make itself. We know exactly who they are and they have millions of followers and they decided that would be the controversy that they were able to turn into a viral piece of contact. Content. This information is a multimedia issue. We see it on am radio and cable news. There is not one single place where you can choke down on this but you have to look at the overall ecosystem and to finding for us was it turned out to be a big deal. I appreciate your testimony and i now recognize mr. Rogan mr. Rosenberg to summarize his statement. Members of the subcommittee, thank you very much to give to have the opportunity to address you. I will focus on the second part of the equation, the threat to the confidence and the danger of fabricated telling of lack of overconfidence in elections being used not to ensure elections are run with integrity but as a pretext predominately voters of color. It is important to distinguish between supported cybersecurity this current concerns to protect against the future. From the unsubstantiated lack of voting confidence. The former can lead to protections that will make the election secure and deep laughter and the latter considering these issues, we want to not allow the election of obstacles to voting by built by the specter of loss and self fulfilling cop properties of self lack of overconfidence bolster confidence. Voter confidence. Before the ink was dry on the ratification of the 15th amendment that guaranteed the right to vote for all americans, there were those to use every means to stop voters of color from voting. There was an act to stop issues like voter taxes and voter literacy those who wanted to stop voters from voting were not deterred. We have prevent Church Sessions with a document a history of discrimination in voting from implementing changes in election properties without preclearance from the attorney general. Section five was guided by the Supreme Court in its decision. All this is a preference of what is happening today. Prefix preface of what is happening today. First they claimed that the new practices are necessary to drop to stop fraud there is no evidence. The new number of alleged fraudulent balances ballots are outweighed where they cannot prove product, they point to surveys which they say demonstrate the lack of water confidence in the system voter confidence in the system. This sells the result of the last victim is small of the lies big and small. This happened in texas in the fill attempt to implement full or id loss voter id laws. Laws have been passed making it work difficult for voters of color to vote. The biggest threat are these lost. Every claim of irregularities in the last president ial election was rejected by the courts. In the lesson of the little girl boy who cried wolf, when danger came, no one came to help him. There may be legitimate concerns and congress should be doing everything they can to guard against those dangers. It should not be let off course by the pernicious lies of the boy crying wolf and it should not permit socalled lack of water confidence voter confidence. I thank you for your testimony and i recognize mr. Masterson to summarize his statement for five minutes. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I will skip the introduction. I led the work at sisa. In a way that we havent seen in decades without record turnout and validated Election Officials but despite the work, Election Officials are facing threats against themselves. Their workers and families and this environment is not sustainable and support must be surprising to these officials to ensure safety and security of elections. Myself and group of students published eight a report on the threats including against officials. Welldefined playbook available to foreign and domestic actors. Their mitigation there are medications to these threats to empower officials and offer voters the information needed to reject the disinformation. A shared funding structure should be implemented in which all levels of governments pay for their portion of each election. We must ensure the physical security of Election Officials. The creation of the doj Election Task force is important. First, the doj Election Threat Task force should provide data. Second, in order to ensure data is collected, local and state enforcement should share activity directed against officials and workers with federal Law Enforcement. Penalties must be increased against those who threaten Election Officials or their families. Congress and state legislature surpassed loss should pass loss against threats. That a lecture can take utilizing in order to train Election Officials. We must continue to improve Cyber Resilience of elections. We must encourage states to implement precertification audits of paper ballots. Sisa and another group should provide service to Election Officials like crossfeed, a Service Provider in 2020. This should include expanded use of crossfeed and remote Incident Response services and increased endpoint email protections. We must better define the federal roles and responsibilities in elections. Congress should clarify the rules roles while empowering pac. The eac. This will allow both agencies to complete their mission and creating clear lines of communications for Election Officials. This should include moving the federal testing program. Sisa and others should establish these lines for election office. They should include multifactor identity intensification authentic vacation. Proper away from state and local county networks. Sisa shall leverage its support to election officers as well as additional steps election offices can take to secure and for structures. Our elections are massive and underfunded but they are accurate and fair because of the work of Election Officials. The only response to the only ongoing threats is a sustained investment in those working hard to protect it. I think you and all of todays witnesses for your testimony thank you and all of todays witnesses for your testimony and we have each five minutes to question the panel and as i begin i now recognize myself for questions. As i said in my opening, if election securities means anything, it means making sure every voter can cast their ballots and their ballots will be counted. Mr. Rosenberg, you talked about how politicians exploited the perception of loan voter confidence as a pretext of lossmaking voting harder but not secured. What do you see as the real threat to voter confidence and how has that changed since 2020 . Thank you for that question. The real right is the last the threats we see is the lies. You have those lawmakers who are intent on suppressing the vote of people of color in order to stay in power, using the surveys that reflect the lack of voter confidence which is a feedback loop which is used as the provide justification for laws. We saw this happen in georgia, which makes it more difficult to apply for and cast absentee ballots at a time where voters of color were using absentee ballots more than white voters and preventing the provision of food and water for people waiting in line where it is known that black voters are waiting an average of nine and 10 times longer than white voters so it is those kinds of things that are the biggest threats. Ms. Ramachandran, how has this misguided notion of a rigged election thank you for that question. This big life that has been spread around the 2020 election has endangered the election infrastructure. One of the primary ways is that it has encouraged and given a boost to the widespread push or big sam sham participant reviews. This resulted in election equipment being decertified. They are not handed over to provide partisan outside contractors. When that happens, there is a risk that something malicious is inserted to be equipment or something has done to disrupted and that leads to the equipment being the skunk decertified. All of this disinformation is leading to attacks on officials and election workers have done a heroic job providing us with Fair Elections. They are part of our election infrastructure but they are the personnel that makes the system work. The lie leading a small number of Election Officials to be susceptible to election conspiracy there is. This happened a few times and small in small areas. This happened in ohio and michigan. Mr. Stamos, you suggested that need for clear federal stories on disinformation authorities on disinformation. What more do you think sisa could be doing. A key function we need to have somewhere in be executive branch is the ability to understand what kind of disinformation is dominating the discussion. We have the same problem around vaccines and if there is a national disaster, there is disinformation. If we had a plane crash, there would be conspiracy theories and that is one of the things that congress should consider. Where should i capability exists and the capability is about understanding what is going on but is it is not realistic for every part of the government to have a group to do the deep social Media Analytics needed. Sisa is the place you want to start. My time has elapsed. Ive recognized the gentleman from new york, mr. Garbarino, for his questions. I want to start with mr. Masterson. You have firsthand experience administering elections at the state level. State and local Election Officials pet plate a tremendous role in building elections. On top of this responsibility, officials in new york are faced with the task of allowing noncitizens to vote next to the new new york city mayor to grant a hundred thousand noncitizens the right to vote in municipal elections. The new york constitution is clear that the citizens have the right to vote but what are your thoughts about allowing noncitizens the right to vote in addition to what are your thoughts about how this is going to affect the Election Officials and their ability to do their jobs . It is important to note that for federal elections. Noncitizens cannot register or vote in federal elections. Any time Election Officials are presented with additional responsibilities that include the use of more databases and registrations, that adds a layer of complexity to their work that needs to be met in a resourcing and support. When we talk about changes like this and looking at the risk analysis, we have to understand the benefits of what we are asking the Election Officials to do is also made more difficult by the needed to provide factual information to voters. Decisions like this are made locally. I gave understand it i deep understanding of what we are asking officials to do and what impact this has on the election process is credible critical. They are asked to do more and more. Specifically, the mayor only has control over the city council but there are not just city council elections. There are Supreme Court seats in state court seats and of and special elections and congressional seats that are held in be all years the off years. What kind of process will this do and how confusing can it be . I am not alloyed with all the language in the bill but any time youre asking for a separate registration system, it increases the complexity of what databases have to be administers and what the process looks like and how you create valid ball ot styles. You are talking about thousands of ballot styles. Layering on these responsibilities as a challenge and when making changes like this, understanding the risks and responsibilities and the additional burden placed on the administrators is important. I know we focused on your role as an election official and i will ask a question into your role in an Election Commission which would allow bea seat to focus on the core mission of Election Administration and can you walk us through how this will look and practice . I believe deeply in the mission of both officials. What i would like to see in order to save valued resources, that eac is small. Sisa is a technical lead and you shall worry about the infrastructure. The sharing of threat and risk data and the eac can focus on everything else. Right distribution grant this relation distribution. Sisa understands the cybersecurity majority of these offices. My time is expired and i will yield back. Thank you very much breaking members of the chair and the chair will recognize other members. In accordance of the guidelines laid out by the chairman and Ranking Member in i will recognize members in order of seniority alternating between the majority and the minority and members are reminded to unmute themselves to be rep. Mast for questioning to be recognized for questioning. We recognize that share weaponizes congresswoman jackson lee the chair recognizes congresswoman jackson lee. If i could be delayed and yield to another member. That gentlelady will yield at this time and i recognize that gentleman from rhode island, for five minutes. I want to thank you for holding this hearing. I want to think what for this testimony and the insights that are helpful. I would like to start with mr. Masterson. You suggest that a number of baselines for state and local election offices and elections. What is your assessment of the current textbook capacity of relevant stakeholders to implement these measures and how can the federal government assist to build technical capacity . Thank you for your service and support for cybersecurity work and challenging us at sisa. The current state is that we have a, a long way since 2016. The declaration of critical structure we see more Network Segmentation and database security Access Controls in place and that bore out in 2020. The reality is this is not something you ever finish. It is a constant process to secure the systems. What sisa can do is reach the last mile. The midto small counties that have little to no ip support that are doing the best they can and identified the base line practices and help them respond to emerging threats we have seen with things like solar winds to push the information out and help them mitigate the former release that may be present. We have to utilize field forces and combination with crossed feet which scans for vulnerabilities to alert jurisdictions. Thanks for the insight. To all of our witnesses, i want to turn to election supply chain and all of the witnesses, what capabilities to state and local areas have to are there are opportunities for congress to support improvements to those capabilities if we establish with miss ramachandran and and we will work our way down the line. We dont have a officials dont have a framework to help them ensure that they are choosing vendors that are following best practices. One helpful way for congress to be helpful is to mandate or incentivize election vendor security standards. Congress to limit the use of federal funds for elections to force vendors to meet cybersecurity personnel and supply chain practices so it could be promulgated by systems the election systems corporation. This will help them incentivize the choices for vendors but as states and counties can do their procurement policies and negotiate for contracts where vendors can mitigate supply chain risks. Thank you. I will say, the supply chain issues is huge. I got pulled into the solar winds investigation and against an adversary at that level when you have someone as skilled as attackers who will spend a year infiltrating the supply chain, it is unlikely that we can ask either election manufacturers themselves or state and local officials to stand up on their own. There needs to be an aggressive move. I think a model of much aggressive openness by the manufacturers and willingness to work with one another and the fbi and s sisa is going to be critical because against attackers like that is difficult. I defer to ms. Ramachandran. The only thing i will add is the assumption in elections that we should be reliant on the performance or security of the software and hardware which is why paper ballots are so critical. We have that precertification to verify the cell we see great improvement as was noted at 96 of votes cast it on paper ballots and expand the usage of paper else is critical. Ballot is critical. That chair recognizes the gentleman gentlewoman from tennessee. This question is for mr. Masterson. Polls have shown an overwhelming majority of Election Security measures for id loss, including 77 of black voters and many laws in your view, what federal legislation that nullifies or undermined the popular state Election Security laws like voter id, increase or decrease Election Security . Overconfidence is voter confidence is fickle in that it depends on how your candidate fared. Legislation should be based on what information and data can be provided to the voters to increase state their understanding on the security of their votes and what do states and local elections need. There is a reason and it is good that state what support and information do they need to secure their process and talk to their voters about the steps they take. Any legislation based on those principles is important. Have you ever watched the documentary, kill chain . Yes. Tell me your thoughts. On that. I wont wait in on the cinematic value but i think kill chain and the work we have done with sisa raises an important conversation about how do we talk about vulnerabilities and critical systems, whether that is voter registration. How do you we how do we get that information in the hands of people who can fix it and how do we talk to voters. What resilient resilience measures can be put in place. And ensure that voters know that they that their votes are counted. Absolutely. About harvesting, what are your thoughts on that . Do you think federal legislation that is proposed now that requires unlimited ballot harvesting in every state would reduce Election Security . Each state has their own requirements around how they manage the collection and security of ballots. Each state knows what they need to do to manage that. As i look at the security of our ballots and our votes, ensuring proper chain of custody and proper documentation that is appropriate. With that said, in my home state of ohio, we had early in person voting and vote by mail for a number of years and Election Officials have administered that with integrity and security. I am confident in their professionalism and the bipartisan nature of the process to do well. Yesterday, President Biden did suggested there could be problems with the midterm elections without Voting Rights legislation being passed by the federal government. Therefore, basically what he said is it could easily be illegitimate in the midterms coming up. That sends a message now that maybe this will not be done properly with these Election Officials. What are your thoughts on what he said . Just as in 2020 when the Election Officials heroically performed in the face of a Global Pandemic with record turnout and challenges across the board, i have full confidence in them. I would hope that nobody would use the question of the legitimacy of our elections for any purpose and understand and work with the Election Officials to understand the steps they take to protect they did in 2020. Thank you, sir. Madam chair, i yield back. The chair now recognizes for five minutes, the gentlewoman from texas. Sheila jackson lee. Thank you very much madam chair. Thank you for an important hearing and important statement on the importance of voting integrity and security. My question is in the backdrop of a tragic and unfortunate accident on the floor of the u. S. Senate. Those who voted obviously misinterpreted their responsibility considering democracy. Part of that, of course, is the infrastructure. I want to begin the brief time i have with my question to at least note that the election representative under the past administration clearly made sure there was no fraud in the 2020 election of any sizable amount. In addition, there was no fraud of any sizable amount indicated by the republican secretary of state of texas. Yet, we have been the victims of a brutal scene of purging voters and establishing new crimes in the in voting and a number of impediments to mailin voting and early voting. Even aside from the infrastructure, we are rife with the challenges that we would have. Between let me indicate for all witnesses that based upon the fatal attack on the u. S. Capitol on january 6, that demonstrated the real potential for a stolen and rigged election to insight realworld violence. In the weeks before january 6, President Trump an outrights Information Campaign designed to overturn the democratic will of the people. To the persons on this panel, how have you been with corresponding threats of attacks on other state capitals or to individual Election Officials changed the way we think about election misinformation . That is obviously technology and the big lie narrative. How might this narrative metastasized over the course of this year and before the president ial election . I would appreciate if starting with mr. Ram condron ramchandran and then alex and ezra. Thank you for that question. It is interesting that you note the Information Campaign led to violence on january 6 and talked about how it has metastasized then. We have seen many Election Officials also being subject to threats of violence, harassment and real physical security risks. When congress was counting electoral votes on january 6, they were acting as Election Administrators which is natively counting up the boat and declaring and certifying the election. I think it is really a continuous chain of threats of physical violence against those attempting to enact the real the will of the voters and this amplifies the need for increased physical security protections for Election Administrators. Just proceed. Also, thank you of bringing up the information of this Information Technology that can also be threatening. Something that has changed and progressed since january 6 is the actions major platforms took to finally enforce a bunch of rules on the books that were not aggressively enforced before january 6. There has been a fracturing on the social media landscape of which this has happened. We have a really Significant Growth of alternative platforms that are more radical and have almost no confirmation at all. We have moved to contact of messengers, most notably telegram, which has a small groups and amplified components. The net effect is our ability to understand what is going on is much reduced versus where we were in 2020 because most of these platforms have no official way to study them. Do not have legal frameworks in place to authorize either the government or independent groups like our own to work on this. That is why we have been pushing for transparency legislation. I would just say one thing, congressman jackson lee. It has to do with your state of texas which has an unfortunate history of intimidation on people of color when they are voting. Sb 1 which was passed this year gives partisan poll watchers virtual an trailing access that will increase the opportunity for that intimidation, while at the same time it criminalizes any obstruction with the poll workers election judges. That to me is a very serious obstruction in the light of january 6. Those are really start evidence. I am grateful to the chairwoman for bringing up the this is out of control and will continue to be if we do not provide transparency and a framework during the election period. I yield that, thank you. The chair now recommends for five minutes the chair from georgia. Thank you madam chair. The statement that the november 20 20 election was the most secure election in american that in my opinion is the big lie. That is what we heard in my state of georgia but now we are finding out about massive valid dropbox stuffing, valid harvesting happening between 2 00 a. M. And 5 00 a. M. In the morning. Who puts them there between 2 00 a. M. And 5 00 a. M. In the morning echo one person has admitted to being paid 45,000 to put a hundred ballots in. There has been evidence that 240 people were involved and if they all harvested only a thousand ballots each that would be 240,000. In the 2020 election is called the most secure election in america . That is the big lie. Have a couple questions for you now. Ms. Ramchandran, do you believe voter id increases Election Security . Yes or no would be fine. No, i do not believe voter id is photo id is necessary. Ok, that is fine. Mr. Alex ramose, you believe photo id increases security . That is not my area. Im sorry by do not have an opinion. Ok. Mr. Rosenberg, i believe you made a comment where you called photo id discriminatory against people of color. Do you believe photo id increases Election Security to verify voter identity . There is no evidence of an inperson voter fraud which is the only thing voter id protects against. Ok. Just yes or no. No, i do not believe it increases security because there is no evidence all right, thank you. You are a no. Mr. Masterson, do you believe photo id increases Election Security . Each state has their own process and i trust the state and Election Officials to understand what to do. Ok, so you do not have an opinion . Each state sets it and follows it and i think they understand what their voters need. Ok, all right. That definitely tells me where each of the witnesses stand when it comes to voter id. We use government issued picture id for many things, to verify exactly you are. I could not fly here without showing a valid pick your id tsa at the airport. If you want to go eat now in washington, d. C. , you have to have a valid id and a vaccination card to show who you are and the fact you are vaccinated the number one thing that our constitution protects is one person, one vote. For folks not to think that voter id is important is just stunning to me. Mr. Masterson, during your time at sisa, you spoke to state and local Election Officials about their cybersecurity capabilities and what resources they needed to secure their systems. What sisa services have the greatest positive effect on Election Security in your opinion . I appreciate the question. In my opinion, the services we provide at no cost made it to small counties allow them to identify possible vulnerabilities in their systems and mitigate them. Cyber hygiene scams, penetration testing, cross feeds. The biggest benefit that we provided is the establishment of an Information Analysis Center where all have access to ongoing threat and risk information area risk information. Are there any services that sisa should be looking to . A appreciate that question pray. First is scanning to see online if voter systems are connected. The second is looking to expand remote Incident Response services and emo security. How can they help support better email security because we ce mail as high risk we see email as high risk and exploited in small counties. Thank you very much. Madam chair, i yield back. The chair now recommend recognizes for five minutes the gentlewoman from thank you to all our witnesses for joining us. The thing i want to talk about is the threat of violence to our Election Officials. That is something that i am from michigan. It has just been a kind of thing that has affected our electoral process and i fear it is she waiting people from running for clerk. This means people are not going to participate in upholding democracy. The example i have here is tina barton. She was a republican elected clerk in michigan in one of my bigger cities of rochester hills. She corrected a clerical error in 2020 on Election Night and the leaders of her own party claimed there had been widespread fraud in michigans election and try to pressure her into casting doubt on the results of michigans election. She did the right in and literally got on camera and refused, publicly rebutting this information. But then, the onslaught came. Just by doing that, doing her job. Her and her husband, who is a sheriffs deputy, began to receive death threats. Had to upgrade their Security System with thousands of dollars. After eight years of serving rochester hills, she went on. She is doing Better Things that she is not alone. We have clerks from michigan who have received a number of death threats. The majority of the clerks in my area are republican so this is not a partisan thing. I would love, maybe mr. Masterson, starting with you. You laid out things that sisa and the doj do to protect election workers but tell us what works, what actually works to protect people at the ground level who are receiving this vitriol. Accountability works. We need to see those who are threatening Election Officials their families workers industry workers and electors accountable. We have seen surprisingly little indictment or enforcement against these folks. It starts with accountability. Secondly, resources, allowing Election Officials and judges and Law Enforcement officers to get the benefit in many states. Protecting personal information. There are laws that can be passed to ensure docs and is at least difficult. Those are the things i think immediately would help. For you and mr. Stamos, i have we are all talking about how to make sure that our kids know what is real information and what is disinformation. I hear all the time from moms how hard it is to tell kids where they can reliably get information and how to teach them. I have a bill on Digital Literacy for kids. What works . What are the tools that i could be telling moms to use to help their kids tell fact from fiction . Mr. Stamos, do you want to start . Sure. For the work i do, when we talk about kids, a key thing to work with kids is who they are interacting with online and to keep a presence in their online browsing x areas. I think there are way too many i am a parent of three and it is really easy to get our kids free range and access. That is both risky from an interpersonal perspective of things that happen to kids when they run into people online but also information. They might watch youtube and there are a lot of videos on there that are not accurate. I think just being part of your kids life and may be looking over their shoulder. The other thing is for parents when we talk about the disinformation of election, there is a real issue about older folks as well and i do not have any good solution. Mr. Masterson, and quick comments . The other thing is establishing trusted service trusted sources, trusted voices. We need to amplify the trusted voices in the community, including getting kids involved. We know there are lots of opportunities at the state and local level cost the u. S. Is to serve as poll workers or to foster depending on age. So we have to get them into the election process early so they can understand how it works. Thank you madam chair, my time is up, i willed i yield back. With that, i would like to thank our expert witnesses for their testimony and the members for your questions. There is still a lot more to unpack in this space. I want to thank the Ranking Member for his partnership in this endeavor and let me just say that the members of the subcommittee will have who may have additional questions for the witnesses, i ask that you respond expeditiously. In writing, choose those questions. The chair reminds members of the subcommittee that records will remain open for 10 business days. Without objection, the subcommittee today stans adjourned. Everyone stay safe and stay healthy. Over the past few months, the january 6 committee has conducted a series of hearings we billing the writings from its investigation. All week, watch cspan as we look back at the eight hearings featuring previously undisclosed evidence, death decisions evidence, depositions, and testimony. Tonight at 8 00 easter, the committee looks at testimony from the assault from former White House Press secretary sarah matthews. Watch tonight on cspan or any time on demand at cspan. Org. Cspanshop. Org is cspans online store. Browse through our latest collection of cspan products, apparel, books, the core and accessories. There is something for every cspan fan and every purchase helps support our nonprofit operation. Shop now or any time at cspanshop. Org. Here is what is coming up today live on cspan. At 2 00 p. M. Eastern, a look at juvenile data of crime. At 3 00 p. M. , watch live