of 2020 elections at federal and levels. the bipartisan policy center event.this >> welcome to the bipartisan policy center. thank you for being here today. i am the director of the thetions project here at bipartisan policy center. the project is very ready for 2020 and it is 293 days away from election day. havingans that iowa is its caucus in 19 days. new hampshire is having their 27 days and super tuesday when 15 states are having their primaries is only 48 days away. what does that mean for election administrators? election ist the here because for those voters who are covered by the uniformed and overseas citizens absentee those ballots have to be in the mail 45 days before the election so starting on be a lot of will ballots out there going to our american citizens overseas. election years for very fun for me. a lot of people who i don't get to often in the year are very interested in the work that i do. it's also the time when everyone expert in elections and have opinions on how to improve the process. unlike how i become during the olympics when i have thoughts about every sport i know nothing about. if you are in the wrong event and you're more interested in starts in 191that days. thank you for coming to today's event. culmination of a year's worth of work for my team bringing together 21 state and local election officials to agree upon logical election policy. what makes our group unique is that it was made up of only and local election officials, the ones who have to implement policy. ideasare a lot of good out there but policy doesn't happen in a vacuum. the greatest policy implemented poorly won't serve voters that well and won't improve the voting experience. really expects that the voting process will be secure, accessible and accurate and individuals have convenient ballots but only those eligible should be able to do so. our elections are complex involving many federal and state election laws, administered by over 8,000 administrators who logistical and scish and everythings in between. our goal is to create a road map understandakers to their options when doing election reform and highlight the upstream and downstream of making changes to policy in one area. the specificleave conversation about recommendations to colin stewart our secondrating panel but while i'm here, i want to take a few minutes to thank made this who possible. certainly all 21 of our task alle members, we appreciate the time they gave to this effort. they attended events in person the country three times last year. i don't know how many times we them on conference calls. a lot. i don't know how many times you with my staff and they all provided their line to the report. i appreciate all of that. team all making absolutely possible. brenna, ourte program associate on our team sure 1/2 years, making everything we want to do can happen. today is brenna's last day which for us but slightly terrifying for me in december ann she told me she had exciting new opportunity because i thought she was leaving then, didn't want her to leave before we got to the design phase. last dayy she made her our event. thank you for everything you've done, brenna. content, while we've spent a lot of time on that, we're very proud of it. it would not look this good without the communications and digital teams. invite congressman davis to give a few remarks. congressman davis was going to on our panel but there was a vote scheduled and he has to do his job. congressmaner to davis. >> hold your applause, please. matt, iu, and appreciate it. i was looking forward to the back-and-forth like we had last year. to hear some questions and be able to respond. i had the opportunity to address about a year ago now and it was a great back-and-forth talking about what we views were, looked forward to addressing when it comes to election reform and election security during congress. really disappointed i don't get a chance to sit with secretary ravensburger and commissioner and eitherthe panel cheerlead what you're doing or like we do in congress, we disagree with you. but i really appreciate the bipartisan policy center for having me back. election policy matters. it doesn't make the front page. 24-hour newshe cycle but since becoming the ranking member of the house administration committee which as many of you know oversees heldal elections, we've three mark-ups for election policies and have had five election-related hearings where we one last week had voting machine c.e.o.'s testify in our committee of nine. house administration, i think it's very important. but we have nine members on that ammittee and it's become committee that's become more of a legislative committee this has ins more so than it its existence. i introduced two election thisity bills over congress, hr-3412, the election act and assistance hr3736, honest elections act, addressing some of the types of interference we saw in 2016 and also focusing on assisting states like georgia and others, my own state of election bolster their security measures, too. we think they're good bills. we think they ought to be able to get a fair hearing. some positive things we've already done, they recently passed national defense reauthorization act, ndaa, we've included many election security provisions that were asked for offolks like our secretaries state, by folks that are in charge at the eac like the implementingin changes to ensure that our election system's more secure. we will make sure that we have better interoperability to andide state, local national officials with instances of possible intrusion. communication matters. one of the big things that we can do here in washington is to that all three levels of government talk to each other and make sure it's not just about money but make sure that goes to areas that we're really going to see real results areas in's not many government that have seen such bipartisan cooperation at all levels to address a problem that existed in 2016. that's great. we want to continue to allow that to happen. those are our priorities. ton'sare chair laugh proirts and should be america's priorities. we also, republicans and to give $425rk million in grants to states in order to secure their elections. spend it wisely. we see cooperation in a city that is not known right now when tv for any type of cooperation whatsoever. thiss are happening in arena that should be touted and likes what i think a group yours, bipartisan policy center, you recommended that states electionningful reform. we're helping them to do that, we believe. and that's a direct result, i think, of efforts by groups like yours to make sure this was an with increased scrutiny and we also wanted to make sure that we highlight what we've that has worked. remember we had historic turnout elections inm 2018. anybody hear of any instances of intrusion? i see none. i'm going to take that as a no. but that should be celebrated. we should be talking a little bit more about what we're doing this field instead of always going back to instances a 2016 where we know we had problem but we worked together to help correct those problems. the secretaries of state can you that it. our local election officials can tell you that. entrusted toeen ensure that those efforts continue to move forward. things that we should be talking about in washington but instead we're talking about other issues that are much more partisan. year our committee marked up three bills. remember, i said we have nine congress on the house administration committee. i'm the lead republican on the smallest committee in congress. i have three republicans on that committee, in the minority. major election bills marked up through that committee. 600-plus-page amendment to hr-1. while there were good things in all of these bills, there were major areas that i disagreed with so those are as wethat i think we can, move together, we've got to figure out which areas of those major pieces of legislation the democrats tried to ram through, our small committee, and had a each of them on the floor of the house. we ought to be able to come together and get things done in we agree with and that's why i'm glad to be here and working with folks like the commissioner,the too. elections, very much so, that's our goal. we're getting secure elections. look at 2018. look at the investments we've made. these things matter and that's as we're going to continue we move forward, we have some ideas where i think we can work and we need to help with the b.p.c. to make that and also the secretaries of state, too. make sure you tell secretary larose i said that. we got to reform hava. since thatince 2002 bill was implemented. we have so many more issues not securityhe election arena but the election technology arena that we've got be able in a bipartisan way thepdate hava so commissioners can get the funds out to secretaries of state, state boards of elections in the and locallinois election officials so let's work together. we need your help helping us hava. reform of we also need to look at securing in electionvoting methods. centralized voter registration databases. securityams and the protocols that we make our election voting machine vendors through the standards administered through the eas don't apply to voter registration databases. as we know, as we move into the e-poll we'll have more books, more electronic technology at the voter registration portion. maybe we start to look at putting together some guidelines our voter registration databases will have to follow. in 2016s the intrusion in illinois? was it at christian county, illinois, electronic voting machine with a paper backup? the russians hack into that? no but the russians did try to hack into our state board of elections voter file, our for voterdatabase registration. that tells me we've got to do something better because if haves an area that doesn't as much scrutiny, maybe that's where government can come in as republicans and democrats and things done. we're doing things right in illinois, too. just last week, you know, being the committee, even though it's a small committee, i get a chance to choose some witnesses once in a while with hearings and i had a chance to pick a witness to come and the election vendor hearing and i chose my home local electiony official. he's a democrat. i'm a republican. don't choose democrats to sit in their witnesses, right? if you turn on tv, you would expect that to happen but i did because you know why? janaze because i grew up with him and went to school with him and i know there is nobody in my home county that wants to run a more fair and faster election process than mike janaze. he's my friend. job.doing a good our local election officials aren't partisan. election officials shouldn't be partisan. our local election officials does, care, like mike about getting elections that are fair, getting elections that make sure people don't have to wait in lines and making sure that technology works. theipartisan support at levelsstate and federal is essential for mike to be able to do his job but illinois has a cyber navigator program making sure that we have policies in local officials know that if they think there's an intrusion on their voter system or by chance maybe an election machine, they call.ho to simple things like this in washington can be done to make our local election officials are able to do their job. i think a national initiative mirroring illinois' campaign could be something we could have on so we stopport cyber threats before they get to and look at the end of the day our federal government and our role in government is to ensure the states have every resource possible to run their elections. an area that i think we're going to continue over the next congress and the next few think the rest of this can, to continue to push forward. i'm glad election security is scrutiny because it gives us a chance to make things better and i look forward to working with each and every one of you. sorry i can't answer your questions. that dastardly thing called job and going to vote, i got to do. thanks, everyone. and good luck. [applause] matt: so our first panel is entitled defending elections at state and local level, state and federal level, but it's broader than that. have ay want to conversation about, today, still worry, ispic, don't broader. it's more how can the federal elections,help state what do states need, what do localities need, where are their advantages, where are we not being the most efficient. met congressman rodney davis who was here. hubland was ben nominated by president trump and confirmed by unanimous consent eac in 2019. is currently vice chair, soon to be chair of the commission in february likely. on it but vote likely. and he serves as designated federal officer for the technical guidelines development committee which helps to create voting system guidelines. ben has been in and around years, recently serving as acting chief counsel senate committee on rules and administration, driving force behind getting $380 million to the states, a driving force. earlier in his career he served deputy general counsel for the missouri secretary of state's office, focused on administration, training,polling statewide database matching, and ballot initiative litigation. served as an attorney for the fair elections legal network. welcome, ben. >> thank you. him, georgia secretary of state brad rassenburger, c.e.o. and owner of tendon systems, a specialty and designgineering firm with nearly 200 employees. theas served two terms in georgia general assembly from 2015 to 2019 and elected in 2018. of state welcome to you, as well. >> thank you. ist: the first question quite broad and i'd like your initial thoughts and then narrow it down. role --the appropriate in elections. i'm going to ask you first. the realk one of challenges in elections and particularly for people who then't really worked in space is figuring out that balance. as you mentioned in my biography, i'm privileged to have worked at various levels. i still haven't done local, should, but i worked at the missouri secretary of had thatffice so have viewpoint. i worked at the senate to have perspective and now in an administrative what i'vet the eac, seen over that time is finding where i think you traditional see in federal legislation tends to be floors but it really leaves the states laboratories of literal democracy and you see great innovation in the states ensureink where we can that people have the right to vote, that they're able to vote, flexibility for the states to innovate is really that we've seen work in a lot of places. sameew: secretary, question. >> i think the federal government brings some resources the state level and the capacity, one of those being cyber, from foreign actors in particular because they have lots of resources. that's important for us. standard fora testing of new voting equipment so we have a common standard gives votersreally a sense of calm, peace that it's been tested and there's a that systems have and so i think those are two areas very at the federal level, you can help assist the states but at the end of the elections bubble up at the precinct level to the county level to the state level and i the appropriate form that we've had for 200 and some odd years and i think we continue on. matthew: you mentioned voting systems. commissioner helping serve as liaison to the gdc. concerns aboutre voting systems in the public. usability, security. we know that in many states they'll be using new voting this time compared to 2018 or 2016. how do you assess where we are go andwhere we need to how we're going to get there? long do we have? there's a lot to unpack there secretaryhink as the said, some of the work at the eac on the voluntary voting system guidelines, i really do think there is a natural benefit scale to having a federal program. there be 50 different voting certification programs? that doesn't make sense for the states. that would be costly for them. that doesn't make sense for vendors. programave to have a that works and as you know, we've had a history that has but i think we are on the way up and i think we are vbsg 2.0 ande hopefully that will be done soon. i think what that is really about is ensuring that the next generation of election equipment we build and that program around that that really is focused on customer service and good governance and being a resource and a value add to the space and i think doing that ensures that election systems continue to improve going forward. matthew: secretary, georgia is one of those states with a new voting system. how did you settle on what you did and what are you looking for in 2020? we are going through our second statewide implementation. 2002 whenone was in we made the decision, the general assembly, that we'd have system throughout the state. that was a d.r.e. system that has aged out so we're implementing a new system with touch screen technology, ballot with a verifiable paper ballot trail so we'll have 33, 100lemented state.s throughout the we have 159 counties for the march 24 presidential preference primary. we're moving fast. list, the fastest implementation that's occurred in this country. matthew: one of the things that congressman davis mentioned was $425 million appropriated at the end of last year for the states. $380 million, you were one of the driving forces behind in 2018. that's $805ation, million that the federal government is providing to states. when i've talked to state and local election officials, i think they are looking for on how to spend it well, how to spend it quickly so it be impactful for 2020. what does success look like when thismes to how to spend federal money well, be good stewards of the taxpayers' money elections going forward? >> absolutely. with a little bit of my former talk more about the 2018 money but, again, the looks a lot like the reason that congress provided so is because each state does look so different and soh jurisdiction does look different so when you're looking at increasing security, those needs really vary. some states we've seen replace paperless equipment. other states and paperless equipment. other states, we have seen them replace their state wide voter registration database. congressman davis mentioned the cyber navigator program. these are one of the best things to help provide the technical expertise a lot of the jurisdictions do not have the resources or capacity to have. i think that has been a great model. i think with the 425 plan dollars, for certain states like in illinois, backing up the 2018 money. some states have budgeted out five years of programs, which is logical. we are going to get the 2020 money out the door quickly. for states who had budgeted out the five years knowing more money was coming, they can start spending what they had immediately. the reality is where we are in the cycle. there is only certain things you are able to do. -- ich of this is about think of elections as an infrastructure. it is building in the process and the strength in the long-term. they cannot be just about the long term. building systems that are strong enough moving forward. matthew: one of the things that was different about the 2020 appropriation and the 2018 appropriation was a significant rise in state match. the states are going to have to put up more money to access the federal funds. how does that impact how quickly you can get out the door? what you plan on doing with the money once you have it? secretary raffensperger: was said to everyone that security is our number one goal. therstand how important voter database is. we are going to be looking at what we can do to strengthen that. we have a new system coming up. we will be doing a lot of social media videos. georgia public television has done a video. we are going to be lo