Good afternoon, Voting Village. My name is Thor Ascenti. I'm the Director of Business
and Government Affairs at the National Cyber Security Center, and I'm Maddie
Gullickson, and I'm the Program Manager for Secure the Vote. We'd like to thank all of you for
having us here today. We're excited to have our presentation accepted to the
Voting Village. We look forward to future years in our work in elections. So we're
with the National Cyber Security Center. We're a 501c3 based out of Colorado Springs,
Colorado. We were founded in 2016, and a lot of our big focus has to do with
cyber innovation and awareness and solving world cyber problems. We work in
areas like space, where we actually have a presentation from one of our fellow
colleagues in the Aerospace Village today, as well as areas like smart city
technology like ICS and K-12, so being the future of the cyber workforce. Our
presentation today is about the electronic ballot return standards and
guidelines, titled The Future of Voting. I want to start off by talking a little
bit about who we are, what the program is, and kind of how we fit into this whole
picture. I want to start off by acknowledging that Secure the Vote is a
nonpartisan, multi-agency, multi-policy group that kind of goes after a
layered challenge. A lot of the different things out there with groups like EAC,
CIS, the Election Security ISAC, even groups like Verified Voting, MIT,
Alliance for Securing Democracy, all tackle different aspects of our
election security problem in the U.S. And the combination of all these has
led to a brilliant ecosystem in the United States that allows us for us to be able to
publish and listen to and advocate for different policy standards, guidelines,
whether it be at the federal or state and local levels. And a lot of our focus has
primarily been on the ways that we can identify different gaps in critical
infrastructure related to elections. So the first gap that we've really
identified that we really want to talk about, the reason why we're here again, is all
about this gap where security exists in the conversation of election technology.
Security traditionally over this past, you know, four or five years has become
an even heightened level of focus in the world of election security. So we're not
going to say that we're going to become the new experts, but the biggest thing
for us is all about identifying the critical piece of the future of voting
technology. And what it means is that we've identified that security, cyber
security specifically, is a barrier to the future of election technology. And
what that looks like is that if people with disabilities or overseas voters
or even the everyday person who might have an emergency come up and they can't
get to their mail ballot or in-person voting, that there's more and more calls,
especially after the pandemic, that people want to do this. But the biggest
thing, the community agrees, the security is an issue and is a barrier to the
future of where these technologies can go. And that's why we're interested in the
conversation today. A little more background on us and how we've kind of
learned more about this space and why. Our program was started in the middle of
2018, specifically to work on helping address security issues for overseas
voters. Since then, we've participated in reviewing post-election logs and got
feedback from jurisdictions in 10 pilots involving the use of mobile and online
voting between 2019 and 2020. And like all critics of online voting, in every
single pilot, we saw the need for enhancing these technologies. We also saw
that there was also increased demand. Of the pilots we worked in, there was at
least two to one, if in some cases three to one, in more demand for more places to
use it. But the number one reason people chose not to is because of security
concerns. So the more we try and understand these technologies and find
and understand the different things that address the gap between where we are
today, where we are tomorrow, consistently between election officials, the security
community, and the academic community, we consistently see that these technologies
are not going away, but the desire for them is growing. And to go back to the
beginning, security is still a barrier. And through those pilots, some of the
things that we have seen that are part of that core security problem are
critical need for end-to-end verification of votes that maintains the secrecy of
the ballot, critical need for common standards around better verification
procedures and policies. Again, there's really no federally mandated or
even state-mandated requirements around these newer technologies. And so there is
a need for common standards around voter information privacy procedures as well.
And also one of the biggest concerns is that vulnerability of the voters devices
that may have problems on them that could hurt the system and
interfere with the vote. And so we really need to have a system in
place and standards in place that these newer technologies can be held
accountable to. We need pre-election reviews and post-election reviews. We
need the same kind of a level of guidelines that are offered through the
Voluntary Voting System guidelines, the EAC. And that's really where we are
working with, we have a working group that is looking at these different
issues. We continue to look at these issues through the pilots. But
ultimately, again, we're really working on these questions because even in 2016
there were about 3 million overseas voters who were eligible to vote, but
only 6.9 percent of them actually submitted a ballot, compared to a 72
percent rate of domestic voters who are eligible to vote. We're doing this
because if disabled voters had had the same access that voters without
disabilities had in the 2018 election, we would have seen a rate increase of
about 2.35 million additional voters participating in the system. You know,
ultimately we live in the 21st century and we shouldn't accept that people
living overseas or with disabilities don't vote because they struggle with
access to voting centers or because they lack the privacy to do so. And this
just, this slide in particular, just demonstrates that technology is a part
of voting and it is part of our infrastructure. We have email and fax are
already continually used by over 31 states. We have web portals that are
allowing people to return a ballot via a web portal. So the technology exists, it's
moving in that direction. Again, we just believe that there needs to be a common
set of standards and guidelines that can be used to help provide those guardrails
as this technology develops. When we look back at our progress in voting, one of
the biggest things, and this drives home the point that Forrest was making, is we
see that most of our legislation around voting has had to do with undoing policy
barriers that have kept, actively kept, people from voting. For the 21st
century, what is that going to look like? It's going to look like trying to undo
the barriers of technology and security as, as the things that prohibit people
from voting. And so as we look to that future, we want to, we want to participate
with as many people as possible and collaborate with as many people as
possible to figure out what does that future state of voting look like? What is
the timeline going to look like in the next 10 to 30 years of legislation that
we see, of technological advancements that we see? You know, these are some
ideas. These are some of the things that we'd love to see happen. And, and we
understand the concern about, about these, these types of technologies taking
place today. But the point is, is that, that it isn't going away. And, and so how
do we work together? How do we come together to figure out how to make these
things happen? Because we believe that with the collective genius of the
elections community and of the security community, we can make end-to-end voter
verification a reality. We can make full-scale citizen audits of these a
reality. And so this is what we envision when we see the timeline going forward.
And, and what gets us excited about it. You know, there's, with, with the different
organizations that we've worked with, blockchain has been one of the, one of the
ways that people have been able to, one of the technologies that people have
used. Is that the right way? Does it complicate things? Or does it make it
safer? AWS as, as the secure cloud service, is that the right way? These are
the kinds of conversations that we need to be having, not just the binary
conversation of it shouldn't or it should. The fact is that it is. And so we
have to have that conversation about what this looks like moving forward. And,
where we wanted to come to the voting village, which is really that we want
feedback. We know so many of you have thought through these things. And we want
to provide that place where you can offer your advice and your feedback on
how we can make these things the safest, the most secure, but ultimately the most
accessible. Because that's the, that's the whole point of this thing in the, in
the first place. And to get really sentimental about voting, I mean, it is
truly the bedrock of our representative democracy. If we still have significant
barriers to voting, that whole piece, the integrity of that, that institution in
itself is, is undermined. And so, so we want your feedback. And so if you, if you
have thoughts, questions about it, even, please email us at securethevote
at cyber-center.org. We also will have an RFI that's going to go live this month
for solutions to some of these key issues, like we talked through, that are
associated with, with mobile or online voting. So please email us to receive a
notification when that goes live. If you've got that next brilliant idea of
how you think you can tackle a piece of this.
Excellent. Well, a big thanks again to the Voting Village for having us. We
want to thank you and just reaffirm that this issue is not just a security
technology, security communities issue. This goes out to all the different
election officials, government organizations, nonprofits, and think
things out there that are all working on this. Whether you're against it or for
it, there's a component of this that will be driving into the future. And if it's
going to happen, the best thing we can do is make it as secure as possible. So
thank you.
Hi, this is Colorado Governor Jared Polis and I want to thank everyone
involved with this effort to secure the vote. Voting is the most sacred right
that we have in America. It's the right that protects all of our other rights,
which means that we need to do everything that we can to safeguard
voting. I'm proud that Colorado has been a national model for voting rights. With
our all mail ballot system that guarantees paper trail for every vote,
same day registration and so many other protections, we're not only
recognized as one of the most secure election states, but one of the top
states for voter participation and turnout as well. But we can't rest on
our laurels and our past success. We need to continue to meet the challenges
of today and tomorrow, which is why I'm proud. The one initiative led by the
National Cybersecurity Center started right here in Colorado to secure the
vote pilot program, where over 4,000 Coloradans use the blockchain secured
mobile voting application to cast their vote. That program from Denver has
since expanded to six other states, and now includes other technologies to
also secure our vote and empower voters. Free and fair elections are the
bedrock of democracy, and we need to work together to protect the integrity
of our elections together. Thank you for your work on this critical and
important initiative to make sure everyone has confidence that their vote
will be counted.
Good afternoon. My name is Jocelyn Beccaro. I'm the Director of Elections
for the City and County of Denver. And I want to thank the National
Cybersecurity Center for the invitation to be a part of this video. I am here
because COVID-19 has highlighted the need for more options for voters to
vote safely and securely, particularly voters with disabilities. Many states
already offer some form of electronic delivery and return for some voters,
but unfortunately, these voting technologies exist without robust
standards for safety and security. This crisis has shown why we can't wait.
We need all levels of government security, policy, and technology to join
with election officials to establish better standards and guidelines to
implement new technology solutions so all voters can vote safely and securely.
Thank you so much.
Hi, my name is Amelia Powers Gardner. I'm the Utah County Clerk Auditor, and
I'm here to bring you a challenge, one that I'm confident you can accomplish.
As you know, this week, we mark an important milestone. Astronauts safely
returned to Earth from the space station for the first time aboard a
private vessel. Add to that the mere fact that we have put men on the
moon, can 3D print internal organs, and there's even emerging technology
that can edit DNA. Technology has radically transformed the human
experience and solved a great number of our challenges, both large and
small. It's time to start finding voting solutions for the 21st century.
It's no longer acceptable to suppress votes of an entire demographic or
to accept low voter turnout because of weather, natural disasters, or a
pandemic. Mobile voting is the future of elections. Upcoming generations
demand it, and our current generations need to embrace it as a solution
to age-old problems with voting. Our current voting methods require extensive
logistics and cost a lot of money while still failing many voters, including
those with disabilities, those with lower socioeconomic status, and our men
and women serving us in the military. It's time to stop saying it can't be
done, and it is time to start finding a way to do mobile voting. The industry
needs to create standards that innovators can strive to accomplish and
that election administrators like myself can use to judge potential solutions
by. Join me in improving the way we do democracy in the 21st century. Thank you.