In thes, participanting forum. I want to thank the guests that have taken the time to join us morning, to discuss this subject. And i also want to reach out and to cspan for covering something that i think us think is critically important. Undisputed that there are people that have been hacking into our elections for a long, long time. Evidence is indisputable. Start with 2016. But i think if we look back have seent, we might there were some people playing around in that arena, even before that time. So when we decided to get together to these organizations symposium toher a keel with hacking in u. S. Thetions and how to make 2020 election more secure. So were grateful that you joined us this morning. From the view in the audience the audience will probably remember but i did happen to talk about some of my colleagues, asked them how old they were 2001 on 9 11. Were in grade school a couple in school. Reminded them that i was called to the white house and then given the to set up the department of Homeland Security right after those horrific events. And as i look back and reflect time, im reminded that initially we were focused on a group of terrorists from a small part of the world who and usetack us physically and attack our citizens. And then within a couple of a year or so, we decided that in addition to dealing with physical attacks, better start paying attention to digital attacks. Think about it. Is 2002 and 2003. Available to those who would attack us with Digital Tools was minimal. The sophistication was probably primitive compared to what were dealing with today. Frequency hase been expanded exponentially. Days a back about those and i think about trying to deal both physical and cyberattacks. Myself, and this is my opinion. I share it with you. I hope you agree. Its one of the reasons behind the forum. Potentially as harmful, as painful, as harmful and painful to deal with the attacks of and as potentially harmful to our citizens and our as massive terrorists, Cyber Attacks would be, in my judgment, nothing, greater potential to freemine who we are as a people than Cyber Threats to our democracy. And undermine free creatingelections, by doubt. Doubt and uncertainty to the of our political process. Create chaos, which we see our politicalides leaders. If the goal of those who sought was tock this country destabilize our government and impolitical institutions, afraid we have to admit, to date, theyre succeeding. Truth and civility and the very foundation on our Constitutional Government are the primary of the abuse and the misuse. Of social media. Our enemys goal is to destabilize. Succeeding. Now, lets be very clear. We focused a lot on foreign influence and there certainly is and there will be some discussion about that. Underestimate the role of domestic cyber activity as well. Not to destabilize our aocess but to promote political candidacy or point of view. Goal. Ter what the it is unamerican, no matter what the goal, in the digital one of the major challenges we have going forward. The other challenge is, and i remarks, the these digital sun is never going to set. Hotter,t going to get in a hyperconnected world. Withhallenges associated Cyber Threats to our institutions of government continue togrow, expand. It is for that reason that these four organizations got together and said, lets take a look at electoralities in the process and lets take a look at the impact of the abuse and misuse of social media on that process itself. I had a great opportunity the several months to work with professional mckenna. Catalyst. Ly the shes really made a lot of this happen. And a lot of the experience are here because speakers are here because of their admiration her. Espect for i want to introduce my friend colleague, professor anne. [applause] so really, im the chief pusher. Its a pleasure to be here today. You all andank welcome to our audience on cspan. The governor has told you about the sponsors involved. I think one thing thats remember, because were going to be talking today about those Election Security and the infrastructure, and going to be talking about social media and money and data of the, as part undercurrent here. An important thing to do is to remember that no one here is a paid speaker. No one was charged admission. No sponsor is doing this grant. T to a this is because a group of entities and individuals, like here, recognize the importance of securing our elections and recognize the to our elections that come from these two different aspects were gonna talk about today. So when we talk about politics, easy to get personal. This group of speakers is interdisciplinary. Its incredibly mixed in terms of their backgrounds and affiliations. That have come here today. Audience. This this is an impressive members of community,lligence academia, researchers. So were looking forward to working towards problem solving all. You i dont want to take very much time but i want to remind ourybody, as we frame questions, as we frame our responses, and well have a really great opportunity for audience participation with the luncheon, and we want to hear from you. So, again, remember, this is not about my politics or your politics. This is about saving democracy. Thatts work to do together. Without further ado, i want to turn the mic over to my who isue, jenny evans, one of the leading data scientists in the country. Thanks, jenny. [applause] thank you. My personal thanks to you and governor ridge for your us herent in bringing together today. Were here to wrestle with a critical challenge to our democracy. As anne mentioned, im the director of penn states for computational and data sciences. Andupport a myrr myriad of data Computational Research at penn state. We also support penn states Performance Computing system and events at events such as this. Of the institute is to bring interdisciplinary andarch of societal scientific importance and advance these goals. Facultyat by cohiring with departments all across the university. Jointly hiring with numerous colleges and departments, departments such as astrophysics and biomedical also such asut political science, psychology, geography and law. Of these intellectually intelligent and interdisciplinary scholars. Skull culture together a diversity of experts in action through many disciplines, professional backgrounds. And you are that group of scholars today. Our tendency as humans to limit ourselves to consideration ofjust the facts in front us, consider the well, where did i find that image . There we go. Therefore, continue the maam behind me. Purported to be australia on fire. The fires in a single day in australia last year. Also as analian, american, this was terrifying to me until i found out that this is not a day. Its a month. Its still horrendous, but its story. Rent single expert can take on securing elections today. Im sorry. Its not simply a technology issue. Its not simply a policy issue. Its not simply a law issue. Its an interdisciplinary problem requiring collaboration of theserts in all specialties and more. Elections are at the heart of a functional democracy, its imperative that we avestigate this issue from multitude of perspectives, bear. Ng the best minds to Election Security is an interdisciplinary challenge but its also a data science challenge. The core of our elections, starting months before the votes are cast. Available, personal and Demographic Data creates opportunities to provide messages, microtargetting select groups through social media. While this can be a boon to business, this data mining has readily used to spread disinformation across the electorate. Once elections take place, each point in crucial data determining the leadership of our country. Tabulated,ata are where they are how they are communicated, without bias, these are important aspects of the electoral process that must be secure. Into for newerve perspectives on the electoral the fundamental underpinning of data science and needology, the critical for interdiscipline groups to come together, sharing the perspectives and discover isdoors to unquestionably important. Im delighted that penn states for computational and data sciences, Penn State School of dickinson law are collaborating today with the Brennan Center for justice, the center for democracy and technology, and governor ridge to host this event, tackling this critical issue for our democracy. I ask you to take advantage of group, totional continue or initiate lead totions that will action in support of this grand challenge. For joining us here today and thank you again, anne and governor ridge, for bringing us together. [applause] again, chief button pusher. I want to introduce larry norden. Its my pleasure to introduce director of the reform program. Welcome, larry. I think you press the buttons too. I can. Which button am i pressing . This one. Ok. Terrific. Thank you, anne. Of the groups involved in partnering with the onnnan center for justice the event today. I think its going to be an interesting and informative conversation. Ive been asked to lets see. Oh. Yes. Ive been asked to present an overview of some of the Biggest Challenges facing American Election infrastructure. Ad im going to discuss little bit about why theyre not challenges in 2020 but also what we can do in after 2020 tom start making some bigger changes to secure our election infrastructure. It isnt fair but im going to the caucuses as an introduction to this topic. A little bit worried about nevada over the weekend but have toely i didnt overhaul my slides tonight. Reason i think its not fair to use iowa, as an example, it, ofi go ahead and do course there was no cyber attack on the infrastructure they were using there as far as we know, and, of course, as others have out, the caucuses were run by a political party, in democrats. He they were not run by officials,l election by the stating states or the co, are as the primaries are and as the general election in november will be. Arertheless, i think there some important lessons going into 2020. Is that vendors are a point of vulnerability in our elections. We often on capitol hill, when about our election infrastructure and Election Security, they talk about Election Officials. Talk about states and counties. But much of our election infrastructure is created and supported by private vendors. They touch nearly every aspect of our elections. So folks may know that there are three big manufacturers, Voting Machines in the United States and they control about 0 of the 90 of the market for Voting System. But there are certainly hundreds of Additional Companies that maintain and program these that build and maintain Voter Registration pollases and electronic books to determine who is eligible to vote and that perform other essential for our elections. Unlike other vendors in other sectors that have been part of Critical Infrastructure, like dams or are noor defense, there federal regulations over these vendors. Theres been very little federal oversight of these vendors to date. Is, we dontns even have a full picture of how many vendors there are working on our election infrastructure. Either manufacturing or servicing. We dont know where theyre working. We dont know what kind of screening they do of employees critical functions. We dont know who owns them. Infamously earned in the past couple of years that a the Voter Registration systems was owned by a russian oligarch. Only found that out because the f. B. I. Informed them of that. We dont know what their supply chain practices are. We dont know where their parts from and we dont know what kind of internal Cyber Security practices they enforce. So Election Officials can know what kind of security practices in theirin place offices. But they really dont know when with vendors and purchasing products or services what theyre doing. They can ask and they can trust them about what theyre doing but they really cant know. Were not going to get that fixed before 2020. But i do think there is a tacklingn interest in this problem. Housewas a hearing at the Administration Committee in the past couple of months where both republicans and democrats thisssed concern about issue and certainly when i talked to Election Officials of both parties, they say this is something that they want to address. So i said, i dont think well solve this problem before 2020. I dont think that means we need despondent about 2020. The department of Homeland Security, Election Officials, and local governments have all done a lot to secure our elections and our election infrastructure since 2016. And of course for the first time in more than a decade, congress provided money to the states their systems to spot and patch vulnerabilities in those systems that they purchase from these vend. Nevertheless, i do think this is weakness going into 2020 and the solution, as always in hope for the to best and to prepare for the worst. Me to the second lesson from iowa, which is that great danger of cyberattacks is systemwide failure. Perfect. On is there are always technical problems that we read about and see in elections. But if the reporting app in were just a few glitches and only some precincts had trouble reporting their ruls, i wouldnt be here talking about iowa today. The problem in iowa was that the failure was systemwide. Systemwide failure is different and it is a danger of Cyber Attacks that entire communities or jurisdictions can be targeted for systemwide failure. A systemwide attack could be damaging if, unlike in iowa, it prevented people in voting orers from having their votes accurately counted. That means systems like Voter Registration databases, electronic pole books, which are to determine eligible, and, of course, voter machines. Do thiser vulnerability to this vulnerability is to build in to ensurees resiliency. Example of one of those pieces of infrastructure that i was talking about. Poll books. What might happen if this system failed . Cked or it might not start up. So wed have difficulty checking people in. Might have inAccurate Information. You get long lines. People get told they cant vote regular ballot. Maybe theyre even sent away. Weve seen examples of this is nearly every federal election. But at a county or statewide level, it would be a real i would argue a bigger mess than in theblems that we saw iowa caucus. So what kinds of things can we ensure resiliency under those circumstances . Well, there are 41 states that these electronic poll books. Only 12 of them require to have a paperolling place backup for these electronic poll books. That seems like an obvious solution. Having something thats not on this tablet to go to, if the system fails. Of course, even if you have a that backup, its possible the paper backup itself could be corrupted in some way. We have a verld solution for that. Databasesregistration is infiltrated in some way. The federal solution is provisional ballots. We can have people vote and go back and check later whether or not there was some problem with that we had. Thats a really good federal failsafe. Unfortunately, most states dont have any min muns on the number minimums. We have had instances in the past where polling places ran of provisional ballots. The Brennan Center has that every voting ofce have two to three hours materials, if theres some kind theystemwid systemwide attack n database. Of course, voting machine failures themselves can also be problem. There are 20 states that use electronic Voting Machines to mark ballots. And there again, emergency paper people can vote on them are key. Haveany states dont minimums, again, for emergency of thatllots in case kind of a failure. That brings me to the third and final lesson i want to talk about in iowa, which is that paper backups are essential. If voters in iowa had voted on that after that failed, instead of it just being a reporting app, we really would have had problems in iowa. Not have been a regard to go back to that people trusted. E we might have lost those votes entire loi. Haveill unfortunately states that have whoops. Have states that are using paperless Voting Machines in the United States. Despite the fact that there is near universal agreement and there has been that we need to get rid of these systems as soon as possible. The good news is weve drastically reduced the number of paperless machines. 30 millionfrom about people voting on these paperless guesss in 2016 to i would less than 16 million coming up in this new election. Really no battleground states that will be using the machines in november. In addition to having paper, we be routinely looking at it to check the totals that the software is reporting. Of all statesf require that kind of review of the paper, before certification, and even fewer check a statistically significant number of the paper ballots. So im just going to wrap up by saying while all that may sound dire, i think the good news for 2020 is that all the things that thatked about are things can be done in 2020. Its not too late. Even too probably not even too late for the primaries and certainly not for november. Getting backup paper poll books in the polling places is something very accomplishable. Having enough minimums of wevisional boolts is thing can ballots is something we do this year, something that we can get done in time for the november election. [applause] thank you, larry. Think governor ridge made this clear, but our states are on the front lines in securing our election infrastructure. And one of the resources that our states have are the National Stat