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0	3620	Good afternoon, Voting Village. My name is Forrest Senti. I'm the Director of Business
3620	5960	and Government Affairs at the National Cyber Security Center.
6000	9440	And I'm Maddie Gullickson, and I'm the Program Manager for Secure the Vote.
9460	12800	We'd like to thank all of you for having us here today. We're excited to have our presentation
12800	17100	accepted to the Voting Village. We look forward to future years and our work in elections.
17440	22020	So we're with the National Cyber Security Center. We're a 501c3 based out of Colorado Springs,
22020	26840	Colorado. We were founded in 2016, and a lot of our big focus has to do with cyber innovation
26840	32540	and awareness and solving world cyber problems. We work in areas like space, where we actually
32540	36980	have a presentation from one of our fellow colleagues in the Aerospace Village today,
36980	41900	as well as areas like smart city technology like ICS and K-12, so being the future of the cyber
41900	46680	workforce. Our presentation today is about the electronic ballot return standards and guidelines
46680	51000	titled The Future of Voting. I want to start off by talking a little bit about
52200	56140	who we are, what the program is, and kind of how we fit into this whole picture.
56840	63040	I want to start off by acknowledging that Secure the Vote is a nonpartisan, multi-agency,
63040	69300	multi-policy group that kind of goes after a layered challenge. A lot of the different things
69300	75420	out there with groups like EAC, CISA, CIS, the Election Security ISAC, even groups like Verify
75420	81400	Voting, MIT, the Alliance for Securing Democracy, all tackle different aspects of our election
81400	87000	security problem in the U.S. And the combination of all these has led to a brilliant ecosystem in
87000	92300	the United States that allows us for us to be able to publish and listen to and advocate for
92300	96880	different policy standards, guidelines, whether it be at the federal or state and local levels.
97600	102340	And a lot of our focus has primarily been on the ways that we can identify different gaps
102340	107340	in critical infrastructure related to elections. So the first gap that we've really identified,
107340	110960	that we really want to talk about, the reason why we're here again, is all about this gap
110960	116820	where security exists in the conversation of election technology. Security traditionally over
116820	122740	this past, you know, four or five years has become an even heightened level of focus in the world of
122740	127660	election security. So we're not going to say that we're going to become the new experts, but the
127660	134040	biggest thing for us is all about identifying the critical piece of the future of voting technology.
134080	138300	And what it means is that we've identified that security, cybersecurity specifically,
138300	142640	is a barrier to the future of election technology. And what that looks like is that if people with
142640	147060	disabilities, or overseas voters, or even the everyday person who might have an emergency come
147060	152940	up and they can't get to their mail-in ballot or in-person voting, that there's more and more calls,
152940	157000	especially after the pandemic, that people want to do this. But the biggest thing the community
157000	161460	agrees is that security is an issue and is a barrier to the future of where these technologies
161460	167360	can go. And that's why we're interested in the conversation today. A little more background on
167360	172160	us and how we've kind of learned more about this space and why. Our program was started in the
172160	176760	middle of 2018, specifically to work on helping address security issues for overseas voters.
177080	181220	Since then, we've participated in reviewing post-election logs and got feedback from jurisdictions
181720	186340	and 10 pilots involving the use of mobile and online voting between 2019 and 2020.
186840	191280	And like all critics of online and social voting, in every single pilot, we saw the need for
191280	196620	enhancing these technologies. We also saw that there was also increased demand. Of the pilots
196620	201720	we worked in, there was at least two to one, if in some cases three to one, and more demand for
201720	206940	more places to use it. But the number one reason people chose not to is because of security concerns.
207220	211940	So the more we try and understand these technologies and find and understand the different
211940	216740	things that address the gap between where we are today, where we are tomorrow, consistently between
216740	221800	election officials, the security community, and the academic community, we consistently see that
221800	226280	not only are these technologies not going away, but the desire for them is growing.
226540	229760	And to go back to the beginning, security is still a barrier.
231920	239020	And through those pilots, some of the things that we have seen that are part of that core
239020	244360	security problem are critical need for end-to-end verification of votes that maintains the secrecy
244360	250620	of the ballot, critical need for common standards around voter verification procedures and policies.
250620	256720	Again, there's really no federally mandated or even state mandated requirements around these
256720	263280	newer technologies. And so there is a need for common standards around voter information privacy
263280	270500	procedures as well. And also one of the biggest concerns is that vulnerability of the voters'
270500	279200	devices that may have problems on them that could hurt the system and interfere with the vote.
279200	287460	And so we really need to have a system in place and standards in place that these newer technologies
287460	294420	can be held accountable to. We need pre-election reviews and post-election reviews. We need the
294420	300040	same kind of a level of guidelines that are offered through the Voluntary Voting System
300040	308220	Guidelines, the EAC. And that's really where we are working with, we have a working group that
308220	314120	is looking at these different issues. We continue to look at these issues through the pilots.
314480	321160	But ultimately, again, we're really working on these questions because even in 2016, there were
321160	327620	about 3 million overseas voters who were eligible to vote, but only 6.9% of them actually submitted
327840	335720	a ballot, compared to a 72% rate of domestic voters who were eligible to vote. We're doing
335720	342840	this because if disabled voters had had the same access that voters without disabilities had in
342840	348900	the 2018 election, we would have seen a rate increase of about 2.35 million additional
348900	356100	voters participating in the system. Ultimately, we live in the 21st century, and we shouldn't
356100	360920	accept that people living overseas or with disabilities don't vote because they struggle
360920	367940	with access to voting centers or because they lack the privacy to do so. And this slide in
367940	373160	particular just demonstrates that technology is a part of voting, and it is part of our
373160	381380	infrastructure. We have email and fax are already continually used by over 31 states. We have web
381380	388100	portals that are allowing people to return a ballot via a web portal. So the technology exists,
388100	393820	it's moving in that direction. Again, we just believe that there needs to be a common set
393820	401000	of standards and guidelines that can be used to help provide those guardrails as this technology
401000	408820	develops. When we look back at our progress in voting, one of the biggest things, and this drives
408820	414800	home the point that Forrest was making, is we see that most of our legislation around voting has
414800	420960	had to do with undoing policy barriers that have actively kept people from voting.
421640	426700	For the 21st century, what is that going to look like? It's going to look like trying to undo the
426700	432680	barriers of technology and security as the things that prohibit people from voting.
433700	440960	And so as we look to that future, we want to participate with as many people as possible
440960	445080	and collaborate with as many people as possible to figure out what does that future state of
445080	449660	voting look like? What is the timeline going to look like in the next 10 to 30 years of legislation
449660	454940	that we see, of technological advancements that we see? These are some ideas, these are some of
454940	461400	the things that we'd love to see happen. And we understand the concern about these types of
461400	469300	technologies taking place today, but the point is that it isn't going away. And so how do we work
469300	472940	together? How do we come together to figure out how to make these things happen? Because we believe
472940	479880	that with the collective genius of the elections community and of the security community, we can
479880	485960	make end-to-end voter verification a reality. We can make full-scale citizen audits of these
488000	495220	a reality. And so this is what we envision when we see the timeline going forward and what gets
495220	501100	us excited about it. With the different organizations that we've worked with,
501100	506340	blockchain has been one of the ways that people have been able to... one of the technologies that
506340	511480	people have used. Is that the right way? Does it complicate things or does it make it safer?
512720	520400	AWS as the secure cloud service, is that the right way? These are the kinds of
520400	524680	conversations that we need to be having, not just the binary conversation of it shouldn't or it
524680	529640	should. The fact is that it is. And so we have to have that conversation about what this looks
529640	538540	like moving forward. And really, that's the full circle of where we wanted to come to the voting
538540	545260	village, which is really that we want feedback. We know so many of you have thought through these
545260	552300	things and we want to provide that place where you can offer your advice and your feedback on how we
552300	559580	can make these things the safest, the most secure, but ultimately the most accessible.
559660	565560	Because that's the whole point of this thing in the first place. And to get really sentimental
565560	572560	about voting, I mean, it is truly the bedrock of our representative democracy. If we still have
572560	580000	significant barriers to voting, that whole piece, the integrity of that institution in itself
580000	588040	is undermined. And so we want your feedback. And so if you have thoughts,
588040	594780	questions about it even, please email us at securethevote at cyber-center.org.
594780	600120	We also will have an RFI that's going to go live this month for solutions to some of these key
600120	607140	issues like we talked through that are associated with mobile or online voting. So please email
607140	612500	us to receive a notification when that goes live if you've got that next brilliant idea of how you
612500	618140	think you can tackle a piece of this. Excellent. Well, a big thanks again to the Voting Village
618140	625620	for having us. We want to thank you and just reaffirm that this issue is not just a security
626340	631120	community issue. This goes out to all the different election officials, government organizations,
631120	635340	nonprofits, and think tanks out there that are all working on this. Whether you're against it
635340	640500	or for it is a component of this that we'll be driving into the future. And if it's going
640500	644400	to happen, the best thing we can do is make it as secure as possible. So thank you.