Toer that joe biden speaks block religious leaders in souls to the at a polls. Then President Trump campaigns in north carolina. Host we are looking at what has become a scene this year, long lines at polling places. Matt, you study this for the bipartisan policy center. Covidear with the pandemic to we have baselines to understand electorate going into this election . This election is unlike any in the past so it is hard to know if theres a good corollary. Already we have seen far more early and absentee voting then it 2016 so it is really off the charts this time around. That lookse a chart at early and in person voting and how it is trended the last couple of years. As folks can see from watching it, the trend has been for more prior voting, either by absentee or mailin ballot, then in person on election day. What is happening in thinking about the conduct of elections, that has led to this . And then accelerating this trend this year . Matt sure. It has been a trend 20 years in the making. Ever since colorado, Washington State and oregon state made it easy for their voters to go. Vote by mail, we are at sea that once voters have the option, they like the option. Clearly during a pandemic, voting by mail is a good and safe option as well. Already we are going to have no and proactive voting by mail and 2020. An additional five states are also this year, mailing ballots to every eligible voter. That makes 10 states plus d. C. And other states are also making it much easier. I must estimate 84 of americans are going to have the chance to vote by mail this year. Host going into this discussion, how about providing baselines that will help people understand how large is the eligible u. S. Electorate in 2020 . Matt the eligible u. S. Electorate is in the range of 180 million. I think we expect 150 million ballots cast in 2020. We had130 million ballots cast in 2016. Host the anticipation is how many this year . Hunter 60000,0001 million 160 million. Dave wasserman he studies house races for the Cook Political Report tweeted last night breathtaking state like texas surpassed 80 of its total 2016 votes cast, leading the nation. And there is still a week of voting to go. Is that what other states are seeing as we lead into election day . Matt yes, it is breathtaking. That is the right word for. In 2016 we saw 33 million absentee ballots cast. As of one week out before the election, we already have 40 million returned. There are 40 69 outstanding according to u. S. Elections million there are 46 outstanding according to the u. S. Elections project. Host i would like to help people understand the challenges and opportunities for states and the overall tally this year. Let me start with in person voting in advance of election day. How many states are allowing that this year . Uptick ingain, and trend . Matt i do not think it is an uptick in trend. We are seeing more states move toward early voting. Most famously this year we see new york state and new york city voting having early voting options in a president ial election. It has been a trend that has slowed down, morbid trend in voting by mail. Most states are trying to extend the early in person voting option. In the washington, d. C. Area, virginia started its early voting in person today and maryland tomorrow, about one week out of actual election day 2020. There also have been covered related experiments in states. One i want to call to your attention, the Supreme Court got involved in an effort in alabama to start curbside voting, because of the pandemic. I am wondering, how many times this year with experiments for cobit courts have had to get involved with things states are wanting to do . Matt yes, curbside voting is an option many states. It is not something states advertise that much. In some states it is limited to voters of a certain age or disabilities. It tends to be resource intensive. That is what was happening in alabama when they expanded it. And then the court pulled her back a little bit. I think these are good options and we should certainly be looking at them in the future. Because the voters are expecting new and more convenient options. And i think Election Officials want to be where voters are. Host as you have been monitoring the weeks leading up to election day have there been ports around the country of intimidation have there been significant reports around the country up intimidation with early voting . Matt we are seeing scattered reports. But voters have to be discerning when they see those report. One report in one place does not mean we are seeing weisberg concerns across the country and does not mean we are saying widespread concerns in any one state or locality. Again, those are scattered reports. I think what we are seeing more of it is of very long lines or what seem to be long lines and part of that is because of covid social distancing requirements. Is due tof it problems Election Officials i think are trying to quickly address so that it does not persist to the last week of voting on a and on election day. Host you mentioned the social distancing. You have been participating in seminars where they have been warning and having states plan for cobit related staffing issues. Issuesd related staffing with enough people to work at the polls. And enough people to sign and people as they come in. How is that turning out as you have been monitoring it . Matt that was certainly the concern i had early in the pandemic, that there were not going to be enough warm bodies to provide significant, robust voting in person during early voting or on election day. I think i was not the only person calling for that. And really, many people have stepped up. There are many groups out there that have certainly recruited a new class of whole workers and it is impressive. For the most part we are not seen the kind of sort is just that we were most concerned about. Again, even just using data from 2016 and 2018, about half of all poll workers are over the age of 60 in the country. That is a risk category for covid, the concerns were real. I think that was born out. The fact that they were able to recruit so many new workers was great. On risk does not appear election day. We are now in a. Of rising covid infections and any one location there could be situations where poll workers are not able to show up on election day because they have to quarantine. That could result in polling places, oneoff polling places having to shut down or not open fully so i do think there is a risk but i think Election Officials have tried to recruit backup and are going to minimize that risk. Host turning to mailin ballot any reference to this earlier in our conversation. I have a chart to put on screen. This is from a report National Public radio did. 2020 mailin ballots, nine states and washington d. C. Automatically send ballots to voters. 36 states, ballots sent by request. This time around no excuse needed or fear of covid19 is accepted as a request five states ballots sent by request and a fear of covid19 is not among the accepted excuse needed. Uptick in and normas mail and balloting this year. I want to go through some aspects of it. First, the states ability to handle the volume as these mailin ballots come in. What kind of technology do states employed to process melton ballots . Dusty process mail it to process mail and ballots . Matt many states did not have a lot of technology to process these ballots. As recently as a few years ago the most states in most states were not seeing huge proportions of electorate voting by mail. Most states had fewer than 15 by mail. So it was a human driven, oneoff process. The request came in and somebody in the Elections Office had to process it and sent out the ballot. There are technological solutions. I think we are seeing states deploy more of those. Many states have upgraded capacity to process these more automatically as opposed to having to handle it by humans. Host are they getting support from the federal government in upgrades . Or is a state driven . Matt the federal government did appropriate 400 million in the cares act and may. Most Election Officials, most policymakers, thought that was step one in the process and that there would be additional federal support and that did not materialize. We have been seeing and i think it was unfit expected, we are seeing civil society, philanthropists, stepping up have, andess may certainly the Zuckerberg Initiative has given 400 million to states and localities to upgrade voting equipment and absentee voting processes. The Schwarzenegger Foundation is doing the same. I think philanthropy is stepping in where congress was unable to find an agreement. That is certainly helping states run elections this year. Host a second aspect is the capabilities of the Postal Service to get ballots to people and return them to state officials in time. Folks watching this are familiar with the hearings Congress Held where the Postal Service commissioner was called to testify. Lots of criticism from congress about changes made to the postal system. How do things stand as we head into election day . Matt at this point, one week out from election day, we are kind of at the moment that if you are going to use the Postal Service, that is the time to get the ballot in the mail in those states where the ballot has to be received back by the election official by the close of polls on election day. Certainly the Service Standards have been slower. I we do not want voters to unintentionally disenfranchise themselves i not getting ballots back in time because even though we know only 1 of ballots are returned and cemented to counting yet rejected, a huge proportion of those ballots they get rejected art rejected because they missed the deadline and that is the last reason we want ballots rejected. Host voters concerned about using the Postal Service have access to drop boxes and this has been a point of conflict in some states, accessibility of drop boxes and confusion about which boxes are official and which are being done either for malicious reasons or in an attempt to help voters drop. Give us an overview of the dropbox situation across the country. Matt drop boxes have a lot of promise. They have and use west where we have seen more voting by mail and they have been used for many election cycles. These are safe options. For me, i think they are among the best options for voters to vote by mail. A dropbox is a one one connection between the voter and election official. There is no middleman, no Postal Service. The only people who have access to a secure lock box, dropbox, are Election Officials themselves. So i think they are great option and they are not an option everywhere but some states have done a great job of rolling them out quickly. Certainly here in maryland, we have not had them before. I was able to go to my local Elections Office and drop it in the dropbox. There were 200 locations in the state. I think we are going to see more of these in future years because this is a simple solution. A voter convenience option, safe and secure. And from my perspective one of the Better Options for voting by mail. The accessibility of drop boxes has been a point of contention. In texas the governor limited them to one per county including the states most populous county. People criticized and suggested that makes it less accessible for lower income people or folks who do not have access to personal transportation. Can you, on that and courts got involved and upheld the governors decision. How do we understand her house reprocess decisions like that to limit availability . Matt the texas decision is more because the state does not have drop boxes per se. They really have drop site where they are staffed by election people. That is what is required by the law. You have to have a physical presence at all of these sites from the Elections Office ed is going to be limiting. I do think texas is one state most difficult to vote by mail. They have chosen to go more toward the early in person buddy route. I agree during a pandemic that is not the best option for a lot of voters. I do think states really should do more to make voting by mail options work better and in my view making that work better includes having successful accessible drop boxes everywhere. Host another aspect of voting by mail is following the rules as states set them up. In pennsylvania for the past few weeks there has been something called a naked ballot dispute. Which means people have failed to include the privacy envelope as they have sent in their ballot. How complicated have you found the rules around mail and balloting and where have issues like this popped up across the country . Matt the naked ballot issue i think got a lot of press it is not a problem everywhere. Most states require privacy slaves within the outer envelope. Privacy slaves in the outer privacy sleeves in the outer envelope. Many times they want you to use the right color pen. Many times you need to have a witness or to witness signatures. Making sure you are following those requirements is essential so you can be sure your voting is going to be accounted. I do think we are seeing states do better when it comes to designing instructions and making them clear. But considering we are going to have new voters cast vote by mail ballots i do have concerns we may see higher rejection rates and we would have otherwise seen. States is this one aspect going to be a source of likely lawsuits . Matt yes. Certainly ballots cast in person do not generally make their way into lawsuits after election a because once they havent cast in person and deposit into a voting machine. [indiscernible] we do know after election disputes 10 to be based on mailin ballots and provisional bows because that is what is left to fight over. Right do think the range of options for the candidates or campaigns to fight over would be the increased numbers of absentee ballots and provisional ballots, would be a target of litigation after the fact in some states. Host the public has been hearing President Trump raise concerns about mel and balloting throughout the fall. Here is one example. [video clip] ballots are concerned, it is a disaster. A solicited ballot, you request and they send it back and that is ok. Sending millions of ballots all of the country. There is fraud and they found one with that name trump and a wastepaper basket. They are being sent all of the place. To, this isding going to be a fraud. Host how larger concern is fraud in mail and balloting . Matt front is a very, very small percentage of mailin ballots. Over the decades we have seen it, we have seen only a couple of hundred cases confirmed out of millions and millions of ballots cast. So i do not think fraud is big problem and there are many security features when it comes to absentee ballots. Host what has happened it seems as a result of this, the university of florida which tracks the voting steps before 60 election, reporting Million People having participated eight days out. There was a partisan split. The number of people opting to vote by mail. In states where they count them. And people who are not. Is it surprising to you, that how you vote has become a partisan issue this year . I think ath it was, this point nothing surprises me about what could become partisan. I do think it is making it more difficult for us to model out some of the aspects we would normally try to be doing at this point. Certainly in the past, the breakdowns of voting by mail versus in person voting tents reflect the electorate of the state. If it is a more republican state you have more republicans voting early. With this, democrats voting more early. We really do not know what the final turn out is going to be. Host another issue with this years balloting, that has been raised is a foreign and mastic interference in the process. Both foreign and domestic interference in the process. And the fbi director christopher wray, here is the clip where they talk about their concerns about russia and iran intending to disrupt the election in the united states. [video clip] we would like to alert the public we have identified that two foreign actors, iran and russia, have taken specific actions to influence Public Opinion relating to our elections. First, we have confirmed that some Voter Registration information has been obtained by iran, and separately, by russia. This data can be used by foreign actors to attempt to communicate false information to registered voters, that they hope will cause confusion, chaos, and undermine confidence in american democracy. Host right after this press conference you published your response. What was it . Matt i think most voters have to remember Voter Registration rolls in this country are public record. I did not hear the dni or fbi director state they penetrated any secure Voter Registration rolls. It seems what russia and iran may have accessed our roles that are publicly available to parties, to campaigns, so they can reach out to voters. That makes it incumbent on all American Voters to be careful, and be wary of what you are seeing. Notot for that email, do repost that post or retweet that tweet, if you have not verify the information inside it. Because i do think because we have done such a good job at, certainly hardening the election systems in this country since 2016, our foreign adversaries have fewer options to disrupt the process. One remaining in one of the easiest is to turn americans against each other and undermine confidence in the legitimacy of elections. It is incumbent on all americans to make sure that is not happen. Host one method of doing that is fellow americans using social media to spread misinformation, intentionally or unintentionally. What are your views of what the social media giants have done to try to curb that in this election season . Matt i think are trying to go on the right direction. They sometimes have no good way of working. If they do one thing, one party does not like it. And if they do another thing, another party does not like it. Theyre trying to slow down retweet. I know twitter is putting a screen over retweet so you can about it before you do it. I think facebook is doing a little more when it comes to Fact Checking and providing factbased answers to common questions. This is all good. But again at the end of the day these are social media platforms. Onetoone from other americans or foreign adversaries. Who want you to push their storyline. It is something we as voters have to be discerning about. If something does not sound right or sounds sensational, it may be that. There are ways to check the truth. That is usually your local election official. They have the best information. If you have a question, that is where you should go, not to social media to find your answer. Host lets talk about Election Night 2020. What do you anticipate it will look like . Matt i do think we are going to have some states that are going to be reporting data surprisingly fast. I do think the narrative has been because of all the vote by mail we would have endless delays or weights for results waits for results. That may be true in some states. It depends on how states process but by mail ballots i come in. Some states are already processing those ballots. Other states cannot open those until election day where they can start going to the millions of valid backlogs they have. The state of ballot backlogs they have. The state of florida, they will report the vast majority of their vote by mail and early ballots early enabling, by rent early in the evening by around 8 00 p. M. Is turn. Then we will have to wait a couple of hours to get in person voting. Florida may be a state that can be called by 11 00 on Election Night because they will counsel much of their early voting quickly they will count so much of the early buddy quickly. We have other states the early voting quickly. We have other states like pennsylvania or michigan that limit how fast they can count early ballots, policies. If we are waiting on those to be called before an outcome, that could be where we have long delays, thursday or friday, before him have enough ballots counted to be pretty certain about the outcome. Host should voters that have confidence that even if their state is not one of those tossup states, that if they have cemented about, it will be counted . Is every vote counted . Matt there has been a years,ent myth for many decades, about absentee ballots, that they are not counted unless they have to be, and that is ridiculous for many reasons. No ballot is a single race ballot. There are many contests. Absentee ballots always counted. The process lays out when that can happen. Again, for many states, that is a longer process. What we are seeing for this cycle, certainly, estates extended the deadline after election day to have ballots returned in some states. It may have to be postmarked by election day and they will excepted three days or seven days after the election date so the counting continues after election day, and they will count all of them in the cycle. Any vote any voter who counts a provisional valid, after the state counts there absentee ballots he will count provisional ballots. Could takecial count one or week or more after election day to complete. Todaysusan page of usa tweeted a prediction, massive mail and an early voting is here to stay post pandemic, with repercussions on who votes and how many vote in future elections. Do believe that this is going to change things forever . If so, how do you see it changing the way president ial Candidates Campaign . Matt i do agree with susan page that once voters have access to these convenience options, voting by mail and early voting, day are not going to accept policymakers who do not extend that in the future. So i do think even though we have seen a slow trend toward moaning by mail in the past two decades, this is going to be a fight this year a spike this year and i do think we will see the higher level remain forward. What we have seen this cycle is a requires the campaigns to act earlier. Before election day like in 2016 many, many ballots have been cast already. Outou said, as of one week we are talking about 50 million already submitted for counting, a huge number. Alreadyllion ballots somebody for counting. Back earlierything into the cycle and that does have real applications for how candidates run campaigns. Host a closing comment from you for someone who spends their professional life setting the studying the u. S. Electric. How are you think studying electorate. Matt as voters care about the process, this year more than ever though, i see voters and celebrities and many people talking about the actual voting process. About how we need to make it voter centric and easier for voters to actually participate. It is not all about vote, it is vote early because you do not want to wait until election day when there could be a problem. Or make sure you are casting your absentee ballots accurately. And following the instructions. That is inciting to me that is very exciting to me because we want to make sure voters are doing it right. This year more than ever before voters are paying attention to the process. And they are telling us what they want the process to be. So i do hope moving forward policymakers are going to listen to voters and make sure theyre improving the voting experience. That voters really turn out and the process is as easy as it can be. Host so you expect there will be rules and regulations changes in the years ahead in preparation for the 2024 elections . Matt i really think so. And i think again policymakers will be responsive to voters and what voters want. When they see how easy absentee voting is an early voting is, i just do not see states that do not have so much of that going back to the old ways. Host i think anybody watching or listening to this interview would agree with you there has never been so many exhortations to vote in so many aspects of our lives as this year. Thank you for spending time to talk with us today, matt, to talk with us about how 2020 election polling is changing and how money people are participating in the process this year. Matt thank you for having me. The second part of our conversation we are going to turn to Budding Technology and changes in that. We are talking to laura tolle who covers Buddy Technology with Cyber Threats for cnet. Laura hattala, does it strike you as ironic as you have been reporting on Voting Technology the biggest advances are paper stories, mailin ballots and digital voting paper records . Laura records. Laura that does not surprise me. Election security advocates have been pushing for this for years. The culminating of making sure we have paper records to audit elections and let voters be sure that there Elections Come through as they wanted. Dig into thewe paper records story, i wanted to start with mail in ballots numbers are surprising everyone. Than 60 Million People have cast early ballots. The majority of those are paper mailin ballots. How are those mail in ballots at the other end when they are received . Area paper ballots typically processed with the same technology you would use on a scantron test. They can tell whether you turned filled in the right bubble. They are counting it with the technology to read paper and tabulated on a computer. Host how long have these scanners been in use in the voting process . Laura scanners like this have been in you starting in the 60s and then picking up steam towards the end of the last century, where they became one of the top ways for precincts to count votes. Host what are the advantages and challenges of using the scanners . The advantages are that you have a paper record. You are not recording a vote directly onto software or a machine that becomes difficult to audit. That is probably the number one failsafe that Cyber Security experts have pushed for over the past couple of decades. This cap this Technology Makes that possible. Its the best of both worlds. We need to be able to count those physically. Its part of what makes the election feel accountable and legitimate to voters. When you can find out who won right away. But this also leaves people records so when there is an issue you can go back and check the documents. Host i was going to repeat the question about the challenges. Are they vulnerable to hacking . Laura all vote Tabulation Software can be hacked. Any machine that is connected to the internet could be vulnerable to hacking. So, voting agencies have to be careful with this technology when they update the software, when they do anything that connects it to the internet. Wheres a point of failure , even if there is a voting machine not connected to the , where you are writing on paper, which is free from hackers, once Software Comes in a picture you have to make sure hackers have no or very limited access to that software. Host staying with optical scanners, there was a great increase in volume that states are experiencing. You do find out they were , or have states bought enough to be able to process the amounts they need . Laura thats a good question. I think some of the issues that ,eople are most concerned about with paper ballots being returned by mail, is less to do with whether or not machines can handle the volume, its whether them outn fill correctly. Paper ballots have a high rejection rate, which means they have more errors than ballots turned in at the polls. Because of back, if you have not filled in your bubble correctly ,r used the wrong color pen there is no check on that to let you know you have made an error to fix it. I know a lot of Election Security officials are concerned and they are hoping voters can take extra time when filling out those ballots. Making sure you are using the signature you used to vote. And putting your ballot in the right envelope. Not putting too ballots from your household in the same time. It will be a question of how much time those voting agencies have. In whentes are limited they can start processing ballots and others arent. It could be a crunch in the places where those optical scanners are running overtime. The people in the election agencies are trying to get those done as quickly as possible. We also see slower election return. So i think that is going to have whenfect on Election Night we have states i cannot count their ballot until a certain time. It will take a little longer to finish counting the ballot. Host let me turn to the big change since 2016, paper records versus Voting Machines. People will account for when they vote in person. This was necessitated by the 2016 election. What happened that necessitated the big change . Laura in 2016 there was a commendation of concerns about security and Voting Machines. States have been purchasing a lot of electronic Voting Machines. They are called vres. Many of those dont have any paper records that a voter can verify it to make sure their votes were counted correctly. That has raised a lot of concern. Computer scientists immediately pointed out that anywhere with software can have a or be vulnerable to hackers. And they said, even though these Voting Machines are supposed to never be connected to the internet and each state has different machines at a county by county level, that makes it a difficult thing for hackers, but not impossible. The real problem is not being able to say have hackers have access to this. Could there be a change in votes . And paper records are a vital part to reassure voters it was counted correctly. Sor the past 10 years or states have been moving away from those paperless Voting Machines and have been investing in technology that has, even its even if its a touch screen, has a paper record the voter can verify. Not only that, Election Officials can use those paper records to do audits. Those are called risk limiting audits. Let elections agencies have a small but significant number of ballots and look at them for any instance. That can flag it larger problem that could trigger Something Like an audit or a recount. It can find misconfigured that are recording the wrong thing. Its really just for the integrity of the vote. Host what percentage of the machines that americans will be using this election day and week for early voting will have people records this year . Laura quite a few more. I dont know the exact percentage, but there are still some counties in texas using them, a lot in louisiana. Its a lot of populist states that have these machines. And that is definitely a concern. The good news is that its a smaller target if hackers did want to target those, they would have to really focus on those areas. Also, it isnt the only concern that Election Security officials had in 2016. The other major thing that happened that russian affiliated they probedeted, systems in all 50 states and it looks like in about four counties they were able to access those databases. Affecting votes. It could affect who can vote. That is another major concern that has been addressed the last two or four years. Basically having worked with election agencies in the federal government to secure those systems. It will make a harder for them to access them. Securityt very robust for those databases. So that has been improved a lot. One of the things the federal government has been concerned about is a ransomware attack. Basically block of files with an encryption. Specifically they will demand money in return for those files and ransomware. They dont always get the files back. Something the federal government specifically said to sow chaos and do my access to voter record and lead up to the election. Cap was another thing that they worked on locking down and making sure it would not be vulnerable in a selection. Host those kind of Ransomware Attacks would not necessarily be foreign interference, it could be domestic into france interested in selling discourse. Laura its not something that necessarily takes a wellfunded operation to carry out, depending on the particular database. They are motivated for those targeting it. Host is there a story to tell our viewers our tradition in this country is that all handle their own election individually, so you have lots of different systems, rules and regulations. Public, a story about state, federal and the private Tech Industry coming together to help address election related issues . Laura that is definitely the case. Elections are run by states. Its also handed down by the county level. This creates different apologies policies, technologies and wherewithals. That is something that adds to our election system. , you have toings improve each agency. The federal government is not in charge. They can offer assistance. This has been a story of the federal government offering assistance to a variety of agencies. In many states picking them up on that. States can also choose to get similar help from private vendors. There is a large industry of vendors out there looking to help these election agencies. There is also a lot of participation from a cybersecurity community. It will clean up the flaws and people being helped to vote. Its not always a warm relationship, but there has been interesting partnerships of that you suggest ways can have or secure technology and maybe build it together. Maybe there was a collaboration in texas along those lines. Their own machine attached a printer and allowed for the machines to create a paper record. That machine did not end up getting built and used in the mainstream, but its a part of a larger conversation of this is better and this is what it needs to look like. Host the machines in widespread use today started to come online in the early 2000s after the 2000 contested election. You have written some interesting history pieces. I want to spend time on that. Gore, andhe bush v people will remember the story of the ballots in florida. People states or using a different kind of technology. What was the prevalent type of technology 20 years ago . Laura the florida ballots were punchcard ballots. Punchcard we ever had ballots is interesting to me. These were paper punch cards that voters made their selections by punching a hole through the card and the appropriate place. The reason we had these is because in the 1960s we had Mainframe Computers that took in data through punchcard. You could program them or you could put in data with a punchcard. Is literally Computer Programming we were punching holes in two. It was a huge improvement in a because the previous machines were huge and difficult to maintain. Popular countya with a lot of things on the ballot, those machines were covered in dials and knobs you had to turn. It was just cumbersome. So they shrunk the ballot down onto these punch cards and you could make your selection. Improvement. Major it allowed for a really speedy counting of the vote. Of course, what we learned was that it was a really close election. Voters dont mark their ballots clearly, they will punch all the way through. It was really difficult to figure out. That marks the death of punchcard ballots. They were still used for a little while later. Allhe 2003 governor reeves governor recall election in california, there were 135 candidates are replaced then governor gray davis. L. A. County still had punchcard ballots. Candidatesl of those on them. They did go away after that that caused so much chaos. The federal government said, we need better technology. These are punch cards from the 1960s. What can we do . Since the 1980s electronic Voting Machines have been used. They were originally the biggest vote for the dial and lever machines. They help they had the whole ballot on one giant machine. It was electromechanical. It would record it with the pressure of your hand. Into thethen developed touchscreen and dial computer ballots. Thats what were used to know in many places. Even though Computer Science has said this is a problem, these could be hacked, that is what was on offer for a lot of states. Some states went for more optical scanners. They investigate more money they invested more money into optical scanners. Machines paper read later became problematic in their own regard. It is been a progression of moving from one older Tech Knowledge he to another. Technology to another. It created the story that Voting Technology moves slowly because government funding moves slowly. Of voting isy typically not in line with where we are with the technology of computers in our daily life. I dont want to leave the history of computer processing of votes without getting the name of the 1964 machine. Just because it is so 1960. How much of a breakthrough in technology was it in 1964 when it was introduced . It was right up there with these were the computers we were using to make calculations for the program. It was a major advancement. The lever machines were tied related by looking at little dials that were like odometers, writing nelnet number and adding them all together writing down that number and adding them altogether. It was a huge advancement. And the name does come like something out of the 1960s. Just an era of everything. Of our older viewers may not know about it. Im sure many of them will remember. Just remember the years and lever machines. They were in wide use for a long time around the country. Lets move to 2002. The federal government did get very involved after the election and paused a law called the help america vote act. Lets listen to president george w. Bush talk about that legislation as it was signed. [video clip] bush today im proud to sign into law important for our nation. Americans are selfgoverning people and a central commitment to selfgovernment is free and fair elections. The help america vote act of 2002 is a bipartisan measure to help states and localities update their systems of voting, and ensure the integrity of elections in america. [end of video clip] host how much money did that pump into the system from the federal government . Laura millions. The states when on shopping sprees in their counties as well. It was quite a bit. Its created a rush on Voting Technology. Because it wasg basically a onetime deal. The effect that what states got was what they got. For that reason, a lot of it is still in place. Though there has been a lot of effort to replace the paperless machine. That influx of cash really today ofe landscape technology. Host we are talking about some of the challenges along the way to Voting Technology, but particularly this year. Youne of your stories talked about the federal governments involvement in hardening systems against the risk. Quoted the director of the cfi a and his name is and the u. S. Is still at risk in addition to the challenges of voting in a pandemic. There are concerns of ransomware. It exposed Voter Registration database as electronic voter rolls. They launched a program to help state Election Officials make sure they are securing the systems. Americans may not be familiar. Ith this security what has this mandate been doing to help elections . Laura it has security in it twice. It is an agency that is tasked with securing our infrastructure. In that regard, the election system has been made part of the Critical Infrastructure system of the united states. That includes the electrical grid and the financial system. This mandate is to help secure it and be aware of vulnerabilities. Centralizing the information and understanding of the risk to the systems. And communicate with states because it is such a patchs work patchwork of Agency Securing our election. Getting the word out about that really falls to somebody in that system. That is in with the cybersecurity system expertise. Host in one of your most recent pieces he reported that because of all of these considerable threats to in person machines and the hardware, and also because of the pandemic, that there is a renewed interest in online voting. Are we close to a workable online Voting System for this country or individual states . Laura the short answer is no with a caveat. Cybersecurity experts told me we are not even close to having this technology needed to secure online voting for the general public. We do have it for a small subset of voters. Those are military and oversee voters. Is essentially receiving your ballot in a pdf file or downloading it from a rub from a web portal. Can print it out and mail it in. And a smaller subset of those voters can save an image of that filled out signed ballot and return it by email work on that web portal. Voters small group of and it in franchises people to have to deal with the International Mail system, or who could not float independently if they did not have an online ballot marking process. That includes people with mobility who may not be able to see a paper ballot. They spoke with a blind voter who would have been an absentee voter, but she cannot fill out her paper ballot without help from a friend and she did not fill comfortable with that, so she did not vote. Now the voter lives in pennsylvania and she is looking forward to be able to marker screen withcomputer the assistance of her screen reading technology. Marker ballot privately, printed out and mail it back in. Some voters in other states like delaware could return it by email or other states can send it back on the web portal. Write about the challenge of turning something in by email or by fax is the loss of privacy. Why is that so important . Laura the reason that is important is because you have the right to a secret ballot. That is a really big deal. We embrace the private ballot, the secret ballot in the united. Tates it became a major cause after to end thear political corruption to keep code version coercion out of the vote. Your main is attached to the top of your ballot. Its hard to separate your identity from it right away. Its also so exposed to hackers. Emails are not secure. They are not a secure way to send information. Its supposed to be anonymous and extremely secret. That is a big deal to waive that right people who want to use it is if they are eligible. Told one of the experts you is the timeline from my voting for the majority of americans, given the ease of being able to do it on your own timetable from your own device . Laura i have been told anywhere from at least 10 years to decades before we can all vote online. ,nd the reason for that is voting is not like banking. Banking is not anonymous. Your name is attached to every aspect of your banking transactions. So we dont have the technology that can secure the vote and keep it anonymous. We would need a lot of advances. This is a runofthemill thing that affects everyone. We would be voting on our personal devices. Our personal devices are completely secure. We have software on our computers to keep them safe from hackers. Its not a guarantee. If hackers could install mauer and direct you to a malicious website, you could get access to your computer and change your vote after casting them. Then there is a whole internet infrastructure of sending your ballot across when youre returning it to your election agency. There are servers and other countries, well control that infrastructure, so we would need really solid Encryption Technology to lock up those ballot files. Were just not their area. The last thing is fraud detection. It is somewhat of an acceptable risk. Its hard to reduce, but its something they know will happen. They know exactly how much it will cause. With voting there is not an acceptable fraud risk. Its not something you can build into the system. I guess there is a certain percentage of corrupted ballot hackers can get their hands on. Detection thatud can tell before they are counted. We dont have that technology at. Going to ramp this up to the general public, there is going to need to be a lot of advances. Electionill close with day 2020, really just hours away. What can you tell our viewers about your level of confidence, after all of your reporting about the security of this years election and its ultimate validity . Laura i think Cyber Security experts are less concerned right bothbout the threats to counting the may have been in years past, and thats a really good thing. Thats because of the increase of paper records and increased coordination among the states and federal government. There are a lot of reasons to feel good that would say this election will be better. Major areas of concern have to do with how the election is perceived. The fact that there could be delays and vote counting for a variety of reasons. Whether all of those millions and millions of mail in ballots get process and get returned on time, are marked clearly, and all the other reasons we may not know exactly who one writer way who one right away. That could lead to disinformation that can amplify. If there is a feeling like something is going wrong with the way the votes are counted, that could lead to a lack of trust in the election. I think that is where a lot of cybersecurity experts are focused election day, year, to see whether that will turn into a major problem where people are losing trust. Ost thank you so much you have been writing about this for many months. We appreciate your information for cspans q a. Laura thank you for the information. All q a programs are available on our website or as a podcast at cspan. Org. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] with Amy Coney Barrett confirmed and sworn in as the newest justice, the supreme heresith nine justices five or arguments this week. Listen live at cspan. Org Supreme Court. They her arguments in Wildlife Services versus the sierra club. Mississippi, jordan versus the united states, and fulton versus city of philadelphia. The oral arguments live or ondemand at cspan. Org Supreme Court. 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