An hour and a half. I call this public forum to order. If you would all stand with me for the pledge of allegiance. Allegiance to the flag of the United States of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. If you could silence your cell phones and electronics i would appreciate it. Im going to take the role. Good afternoon, thank you for joining us at the u. S. Election tosistence commission, examine the security challenge Election Administration faced to head of the 2020 president ial election. This little conversation will provide us with a better understanding of ways the commission can help, address a variety of Security Issues, including those that stem from aging Voting Technology. When Congress Passed the help america vote act it established the eac as the only federal entity solely focused on supporting Election Officials and the voters they serve. Part of our charges to be the nations clearinghouse of information on Election Administration. It is this responsibility that brings us here today and guides our Election Security efforts. We pride ourselves in convening the right people at the right time to address significant issues and this event is yet another example of that work stop while there are plenty of News Headlines that can serve as the backdrop for this conversation we are not here to address any one specific media report, we are gathered for a comprehensive look in here from three people, including secretaries of state, a state election director, our federal partners, testing and certification professionals, and representatives from the election industry. Todays forum and input from these witnesses could not be more timely or important. Election security is front of mind for everyone, especially those on the frontlines of administering the vote. The recently released 2018 Election Administration voting nationwidealed that fees Election Officials reported to,422 pieces of equipment cast in tabulated votes in the 2018 midterm elections. Election officials are responsible for each and every piece of that equipment. We know they rely on federal partners and election vendors to provide the resources and support they need to make election systems more secure and resilient. We all have a responsibility to provide that assistance. It is my wish we leave todays forum with a better keepstanding of how to things safe, the ongoing innovative approaches they can use to ward off security threats, and how all of us in this room can help the elections that garner Public Confidence in the end result. I ask my fellow commissioners to make the Opening Statement. Thank you, chairwoman mccormick. Im pleased we are holding this forum on such an important topic. In the six months since the commissioner and i were sworn in, they have been highly focused on our role with Voting Technology. Our first action with a restore forum was to start a 90 day Public Comment period on the Voting System guidelines. Public meetings on this new draft version of the principles and guidelines during which we heard that it is a significant step forward to modernized Voting Technology. We also discussed how the voluntary nature results in a system where the full value was only realized if the guidelines and the testing and Certification Program are utilized across country. Should strive we to create a testing and certification system that is responsive to the needs of the Election Officials and provides access and security to the American Voter that they deserve. Speaking of the testing and Certification Program, we recently added Jessica Bowers and paula meyer, who have brought decades of experience with election equipment and certification to the team. We are lucky to have such talented individuals working here. Im confident our agency and the testing and certification see arrived at the challenge before us today and worked with Election Officials, Voting System manufacturers, test laboratories, and federal partners from the National Institute of standards and technology and the Security Agency to quickly develop processes and procedures to incentivize the efficient deployment of patches or updates to Voting Systems in the field. Doing so is crucial to the security of our election systems but they do not exist in a vacuum. Onlier i mentioned our work the bsg we are also working on drafting the new technical requirements crucial to developing the next generation of voting equipment. These efforts to complement the important conversations happening every day in the yield on issues like assessing and mitigating risks or adopting a coordinated vulnerability so that potential issues can be reported and fixed before they can be exploited. This forum will be an important step in identifying areas where we has an agency can do more to improve Election Technology would it be nice if we could solve everything . I suspect this will be more of a start then a finish but we must get the job done. We must strive to maintain and improve testing and Certification Programs that provide real value to the Elections Community without adding unnecessary burdens or cost. If there are avenues where we can do more programmatically or administratively, we must consider such suggestions. If legislative fixes are necessary we should identify those numbers without delay. I look forward to todays conversation i would like to thank all the witnesses for engaging with us on this important issue. And before i turn it over i would like to anchor the staff for all the work pulling this event together, thank you. Thank you. Commissioner, do you have an Opening Statement . Good afternoon. Id like to thank our witnesses for participating, as well as those of us who are tuned in online. Todays forum is a chance to provide needed clarity about where Election Security efforts to ahead of the election and how the eac can lead to make the election systems and infrastructure strong and secure. State and local Election Officials are on the front lines for democracy. I have full confidence that we will zealously prepare and train for the 2020 election and in the end will get the job done for the American People as they did in 2016 and 2018. Because of the unique role Congress Gave us and the fact that we work closely with federal officials, the eac must take a leadership role. We arestion is whether adequately planning in establishing lines of communications with the necessary information to prevent and recover that many attempted Ransomware Attacks or other disruption from a manmade disaster or first strike on our democratic ideals. The 380 million appropriate if i is going a long way for preparation and planning on the fundamentals but as Dwight Eisenhower said in preparing for battle i have always found that plans are useless but planning is indispensable. As we look ahead at the panels im eager to hear from experts on a number of topics, including the dynamic topics faced by Election Administrators and policies to implement and address Election Security and the federal partnership put in place. Im looking forward to hearing more about how we are working to address endoflife software used in election systems, your opinions about the values in establishing a Vulnerability Disclosure Program and your input about how the testing and Certification Program can provide more meaningful security testing. As a former state election official i am familiar with the challenges faced by the men and women who run elections across the nation i know they often face difficult decisions that stem from limited resources and unlimited needs, including the growing activity associated with securing election. My goal is to conclude this meeting with a better understanding of election official needs and concerns as well as some suggestions for how Industry Leaders and others can best support local efforts to secure elections. Strengthen the nations election system is on the line, protecting that faith will take all of us working together and today we have the opportunity to demonstrate our commitment to our voters. Thank you for participating and i look forward to a robust conversation on these issues. Thank you, commissioner. Do you have an Opening Statement . I do. To theme our witnesses cac security election form. I think all of you in attendance, watching online and those in the overflow room on this very interesting topic. With the next years president ial election less than 15 months away i am pleased to be joined by my fellow commissioners for this essential and timely discussion. As i travel across the nation to visit election offices, give presentations, or attend conferences, Election Security is often the centerpiece of those conversations. After the election it was clear that our nation needed to look under the hood of election systems and through that process we identified a number of areas where we need to do better and a lot of progress has been made. Including the improvement of communications between state and local election leaders and federal partners to support their work. Todays forum will likely provide even more evidence of the progress we made but it is also a chance for us to collectively identify opportunities to further advancement and cooperation, including the market for election equipment and better attract supply chains. The challenges face by Election Officials today are often due to aging voting equipment or lack of resources. I suspect we will hear some of that reflected in todays testimony. The reality that the eac strives to reflect the daytoday work, including the forum and our ongoing efforts. Im proud of the work we did last year after congress appropriated 380 million of muchneeded Financial Support to the states and territories. The eac quickly and responsibly got these vital resources out the door. Today we continue to provide oversight and guidance of all these funds. Our most recent conversation with those who received these funds is projected at 85 of the money it is likely to spend by the 2020 general election, with 90 going to replacing aging voting equipment or improving security and resiliency. We know that more resources are always welcome, and my fellow commissioners and i have passed that along with our interactions to members of congress. Todays forum is a perfect opportunity to examine these entities, lawmakers, federal agencies, election manufacturers, and others can Work Together or continue to Work Together to improve security and strengthen voter confidence. It is also a chance for us to remember that our efforts must not undermine access to the polls. As work to make elections more secure continues we must also safeguard the statutory right that every eligible american can cast their vote independently and privately regardless of ability. I look forward to the forum and ofk forward to being a part the work that makes this accurate. Thank you. Thank you. I would like to invite our executive director to make remarks on behalf of the staff. By way of introducing the agenda, we will have three panels representing three flights of testimony that was arranged as first secretaries of state, then the eac testing and andification director, other stakeholders related to certification and software changes, including federal partners, dhs, and microsoft. Manyhird panel represents registered voting equipment manufacturers as well as test labs. Has beenale participating in another meeting this morning and will be arriving after that panel begins. If for some reason he has difficulty getting in time we will move him to the third panel. One final comment about today. Theosoft windows 7 was topic that started this discussion and we are pleased that microsoft is here today but todays topic is much broader and we will talk about risk but i wanted to acknowledge risk at a different level. Almost all of you have discussed security with Election Officials, congress, and other stakeholders and bike causing to discuss these and to engage in public dialogue where the clear end result is not yet known as a and and i hope all will see appreciate the role we are taking in this regard. The election equipment vendors and microsoft have taken a risk to come here and talk openly about the Security Issues the industry shares. I know you appreciate the willingness to come in today and speak candidly at these issues. Beyond those who are speaking today, we are receiving other fromnts from the record, the center for democracy and technology and dominion voting. These statements are available and will be posted on our website. This represents one of the broadest Public Meetings ever held, certainly the largest ever with 13 individuals appearing today and with that background i hand things back to the chairwoman for introductions of the first panel. Thank you. Is secretaryel denise who will be joining us shortly so we will start with sec. Hardwood. He is and 44th secretary of state, a resident of baton rouge. He was elected december 8, 2018. He brings a wealth of knowledge to the office, having served as interim secretary of state from may until his election and first a secretary secretary of state prior to that. As treasurerserves of the National Association of secretaries of state and on the subsector govern coordinating council. His goals include securing new voting equipment for the state, protecting sensitive voting data, and continuing the hightech protections for the election and commercial division welcome. Thank you, commissioners. It is a pleasure to be here, its a pleasure to represent the great state of louisiana, but most importantly it is so important to be here to discuss. He important issues microsoft announced they would no longer sell windows 7 6mputers and on september microsoft announced the end of support for windows 7 would be january 14 of 2020. I informed the8, governor of our state that the windows 7 operating systems conflict with the legacy Voting Machines for early voting and election day. I also provided information for the resources that would be messes every to move louisiana forward. In the summer and fall of this 250 we are switching out windows 7 pcs and voters offices. Clerks have already received windows 10 virtual laptops, uploads to the state election. Egistration network so how did this effect the state of louisiana . Endeavor,een a costly replacing all windows 7 with windows 10 virtual laptops over the past two years has caused well over 250,000. Thank you. The states leasing Voting Machines with its current vendor until the request for proposals process is completed and awarded due to the windows 7 endoflife issue. The least machines require the use of windows 10. The endeavor has cost us leasing of these machines in excess of 2 million. We have been diligent in keeping the virus definition files updated for our systems, all laptops are scanned regardless of whether or not they connected to the internet prior to each election. We have sent strict directives to all registrars and warehouse employees and secretary of state election divisions, stressing that they are never to insert memory sticks into these laptops or change their phones or any other device. We also discussed this agreed deal with our training and person, duringin the process of our voting equipment and how critical it is to follow these directives. In addition they are instructed to never insert a memory stick they are allck and scanned for viruses upon return to our office as a preventative measure. Means any homework environments that are used by our local election officers, all of this has led us to additional security measures. I would like to say that additionally, the cost of the windows 10 desktops has been 670 per machine, and that does not include the cost to train,re, test, deploy, or maintain. All windows 7 equipment is air theed, meaning none of devices ever touch the internet connected. Scanned forted or viruses before every use. We will only be used with Password Protected memory devices. So how do Software Upgrades affect our office . Upgrades can be mandated at inopportune times. It leaves the short on time to get everyone completed and tested. Notalling an upgrade and properly testing the upgrade would be detrimental to our system. Methodical and thorough and establishing an infrastructure is critical. Testing the various environments like staging and production with one week between each, with production scheduled aroun