Hello everybody welcome to the brookings event on election and here at the Brookings Institute to have several colleagues to join me for an indepth discussion on this topic we will do a twopart event today starting with what you see before you. With the integrative process and then as second panel on the problems tackling this implication with a campaign were in the midst of. And with those keynote remarks some one from someone on the front lines. And the infrastructure security with the department of homeland security. And with they are doing with those t issues and then to go into a discussion with mark harvey with the National Security council for the person in charge of coordinating all of the initiatives. And with Election Security and integrity. And at the Harvard Institute of politics will also trying to work with the outreach on those issues and to understand whats involved on the various issues and to be and in the midterms. And with the organization especially devoted with the issue we are dealing with today. With the Pew Research Foundation looking at polling Public Opinion and last but not least suzanne hennessey. Those dealing with elections and you may know her work at welfare. E so without further ado thank you for joining us today and then to receive questions from the audience. And then to send in questions ahead of time. And to spend the incredible amount of time on this issue the past three and a half years that my tenure here at the department. And then the federal government we are the nations risk advisors. And to be in support we dont have a compulsory mission we engage in publicprivate partnerships the ways that i describe the top of the mind is i describe it to 1957 the sputnik moment for us when the soviets puts sputnik into orbit it was a moment for the United States it was the fact by putting a satellite in space to demonstrate the capability that could overcome the defenses we have built with those geographic defenses we have in the atlantic and pacific and polar i. C. E. Caps to defend against assault by a foreign adversary that icbm demonstrated the ability to reach out and touch us 2016 was a similar sort of wakeup call to the United States and the American People. Previously cybersecurity was an issue and with attacks on banks and intellectual property and sony because you did not like a video this is truly an affront to the American People the potentiality to undermine democracy atpl large. Thats why we take it as seriously as we do. What i want to talk about today where we need to go in the next couple of months and with the a few thoughts with you as an American Voter in particular what you can do. Over the last three and half years we have developed what didnt exist before and more than anything that is a vibrant Election Security of practice theres always been elections on security but previously what we have been able to create our Partnership Mechanisms is a True Community practice bringing all levels of government and the private sector together to work on the issues to identify trends and develop best practices and guidance that led to another key achievement that establishment of an establishment sharing center that all other sectors have like the Financial Services but prior to 2017 no such existed for the Infrastructure Community we establish that with the help from upstate new york and then thousands of local jurisdictions participate in the partnership to share information and trend information with emerging threats to share quickly and effectively with our partners second we have improved the posture i said it before ill say it again the 2020 election will be the most secure election in modern history. Why is that . In part through the practice we have been able to truly raise the awareness of cybersecurity threats with our partners now they are taking action this is a great example the time to patch for critical vulnerabilities has been cut in half over the last year and a half bad is a critical step to improving the hygiene of the networks the other aspect is we have more sensors on intrusion detection centers on every single state Election Network all 50 states in fact in the state of florida all 67 counties have these systems so compared to every other Critical Infrastructure sector may have the best comprehensive visibility than any other sector there is a tremor in the force we can feel it and act on it that is the absolute metric of success. Another with the 2016 election 80 or 82 percent of votes why is a paper record important because it leads to auditability that is a key element to determine the integrity of the vote roll it back to make sure you got the right results through the audit process that the votes are cast where we in 2020 . We were on track for 92 percent of states for those dont have paper ballots associated that what we are seeing with covid we may be over 92 percent that ability to audit postelection audits is critical to establish the integrity of the election we have truly developed a united front lawn unified unitedal states government. We absolutely have a coordinated support from the Intelligence Community day in and day out but others in the Intelligence Community also seeing very active engagement you heard director ray two weeks ago mentioned a kick off chinese related counterintelligence many of tthose were about political interference great partners and cybercommand for they go out there with russia and ukraine and nec activities so what we are able to do with that information in ukraine and elsewhere they are targeting Voter Registration database those is that we can provide state and locale partners here to funnel investment so the top three things we have done to develop that community of practice and increase cyberSecurity Posture with a unified effort behind this mission. One hundred days out from november 3rd so we are absolutely in the pipeline for the very significant election. First and foremost changes in the air and i mean that literally. Cove it is changing pretty much how every election across this great country will take place in november. Its critical voters understand and can share the information on whats happening in these elections. How come back to that and compared to 2016 we are not seeing that level of coordinated determined cyberactivityte we absolutely have better visibility we just not seeing that same level of activity from 2016. Im paranoid by nature so i say what we think the bad guys can do . We kicked off and initiative was state and local partners primarily informed by the increase of ransomware a taking on attacking state and local networks. When it be a pretty bad day with the Voter Registration databasese a r was attacked by e incentivized actor in the months ahead of the 2020 election . So with our state and local partners to increase the posture and to make sure they are not next on the list of ransomware. We do anticipate if we would do something the next couple months not just through d and that. After the election youre absolutely right for a disruptive attack so we have to be ready thats we put so much emphasis on the backup. The last thing is educating voters covid has changed the way pretty much everyone across the country will vote whether Voting Centers a number of the volunteers there absolutely will be changes expanding early voting absentee voting so its critical state and local partners get the information outs there but also social media platforms so day number one working closely from the Government Coordinating Council with the cdc and hhs to get guidance out there and they can disinfect and sanitized to implement good social distancing d like a mask on election day and in person voting but to understand they will use other types for the absentee. Its critical to understand that any kind of voting hasf risks be issue to identify the appropriate motives put in place ready paper ballot backup that will lead to the postelection audits success. Now we want to leave with a few parting thoughts, first our top priority is to ensure American Voters decide american elections theres no greater priority for us. To do that we take the unprecedented steps across the ntus government all levels whether dhs or the Intelligence Community or Law Enforcement in support a state and local partners to make sure we achieve the topline goal. We have also taken incredible steps the state and local communities to make it that much harder for the bad guys to achieve success we are not fooling ourselves there are bad guys who want to do bad things russia wants to destabilize iran probably once another state we will be prepared we have defenses up and we are ready with the American Voter what we are looking for is a prepared voter. Please make sure you have a plan. Educate and understand how things may have changed in your stay in jurisdiction if you have a normal pollingndsd place then make sure it is still that location we may go to another. We also want participating voters. We will need hundreds of thousands of election official volunteers to help support the election in november. Please if youre interested in have the ability, i encourage you to volunteer to be an election official. David becker has thoughts on that as well. If we need patient voters this is a time of change. Processes will change it may not be the case we have all the information on november 3rd we will need patient voters to understand that because of the changes it may take more time party on prepared and patient and a secure and safe election so with that thank you for the opportunity to speak to the groupsun today. Thank you so much thats very important to bear in mind that weve all been talking in preparation for this event is more process thanat the event in terms with those results because you read a couple of questions i will elaborate a little coming on those issues d u just talked about. For those wanting to volunteer you partly answer that as the head of the ngo can give some concrete ideas those that are worried about the consolidation of polling places so for example asking what we will do and then talk about preparing. The spokesperson for those aboard in belgium to say that it is under way to get exactly to your point of participation and this is the difficulty of the timing and now than they have anticipated because of covid19 and they cannot return in person to the universities or ways that people get involved or the way they have thought about this. About whether there mige compromised somewhere. And also about the general mailin voting and enough capacity to handle that. I will circle back to you and getil back to the rest because a lot of people are worried about the mailin ballots. Youve touched on this, but what would you say to people . Airbridge then we can see what everybody else is doing. Officials are natural risk managers. Ive never seen a group so think about what they have to deal with over time, look at Hurricane Michael a couple of years ago in florida wiped out account he pretty much in the panhandle of florida and were able to stand up alternative locations. Natural risk managers and over the last several months inen the primary data in a good job of anticipating some issues for the consolidation of the centers and polling locations to see what transpired where they used a big arena and that is another issue i didnt touch on, but we should expect a to make sure they are secure. One of the great ways to do this is the sports arena is down in atlanta these are big open spaces the courts intervene and allowed voters to continue through i think there was 2200 ballot configurations in that location and they would have to gin up or spit out and that shows us the complexity of the foreign adversary in particular first getting special card stock or paper for the small number of vendors. Then understanding the different configurations about that gets checked on the backend and that is one of the methods of validating. Every kind of voting as a risk associated with it. Its critical to identify the security controls and implement them in a way to mitigate that risk. When i look at new jersey you touch the screen and it goes to the removable media im going to turn quickly because he worked all different dimensions of this in your career and you now ask for Something Else and we see you in a very unusual location to start t tackling on did a quk observation to see what they are doing with the public at large one of the teacher voters. Thank you so much for having us today. Its a tremendous panel. Chris had some incredible words and frankly for having been there from the early meetings between the state and local government, but the biggest things is to develop a trust relationship with them and this wouldnt happen without it. They were hesitant to start and they worked hard over the last three years and gained a lot off trust out of the state localities. It is the most important parts to consider here. How do i make sure the vote is counted and has integrity. Think about what has to happen in order to certify because that includes registering voters, generating, giving us the polling locations, recording the votes and tabulating demint reporting them back to the Central Source of the state level and certifying them in communicating that certification to the appropriate place where the officeholders will enter into their new service division. That is a number of different systems together. The second part is the system of systems and you realize all of the resources necessary to do all of that from focus on cybersecurity after 2016. But lets recognize the resources necessary along the way. Youve got people and data and or physical infrastructure and facilities and transportation and plans necessary to make this happen, then youve got your Information Technology communications. So the layer of resources has to be working together because we could have wonderful Cyber Security controls and the best centers in play but as we saw with twitter once you have an insider that is willing to corrupt the entire process, now youve lost trust and faith in that. So weve got to think about all of those resources together than the best word chris used as controls. One of the controls we have in place to make sure every step along the way that we add in the ability to apply for the michael vick a little of integrity just like we do on the other Cyber Systems out there and those are things that are going to have to happen before the vote in terms of the legal controls placed on how they get to register and how somebody closebrace for an election and how the ballots are generated and then afterwards on the certification process and the audit process. Lets also recognize the creativity of problems for ourselves. In Information Technology how they are used in configuring them for the vulnerabilities in the system that could be exploited to cause harm we have to think through the fact that we are rapidly changing every single one of those categories we are going to use a different set of people to administer and in many cases that happened in iowa during the primary base ofn they said they want one final result, part three we are using new or different physical infrastructure and to go to an arena and a sports facility, civic center, anything different from what weve done before we are now introducing and affordability system. And we are also using new Information Technology. Many, many states have the voting equipment with what is made available after 2016 that are being configured and firsttime we are also asking people to change how we utilize all of that said this to the key point and i think for november its to tell everybody take the week off, so the media, dont report a single result fo or the ballots cast, take thises week d 1776 mr. Smith goes to washington and hamilton and have a great week of civic pride and we will announce who is one because i will give us time to come to balance for every capability and it will give us time to identify if and where there are connections that need to be adjudicated appropriately its not unfolding that its being counted is that theres a lot wrapped up in the system when there is a lot of motion with each bit of that right now. Your organizations also new in the terms of the necessity after 2016 and in terms of the activeti outreach thanks for having me on the panel. I completely agree with everything the director just said. I think one thing that has been very clear over these last several years is in a highly partisan devices to talk to officials across the political spectrum across the country, they will say, they will tell you how well it. Ive been doing elections for a long time and then my new Organizational Research its clear since 2016 there are two potential targets that we need to be concerned about. One is the actual infrastructure as it was accurately pointed out weve been relying upon technology more and more and in someno ways it is good to do something very well and it accounts more accurately and quickly for access for people that have challenges etc. But it does become a target and it has been a target for instance we know the database and a couple of states. Many other attempts were made but perhaps the bigger target was in the mind of the American Voter and to diminish confidence that we all have this system of democracy is working into the results reflect the voice of the people. We have to be very considerate of those targets. Officials have a very difficult job because they have to secure the systems and theyve done a much better job of that. As the director mentioned, we have now audits and more places. Georgia has the paper ballots from South Carolina has the paper ballots. Philadelphia, large counties in north carolina. These places didnt have them in 2016 and they do now and we will have robust audits of the ballot statewide in states like georgia and michigan and virginia. We didnt have that in 2016. Thats a remarkable improvement, so weve done a better job of securing the actual infrastructure. It doesnt mean we crossed the finish line. We need to continue to improve whabut we are more secure than weve ever been. One of the challenges we face is that the voters are not necessarily absorbing the message or the fact effects of s activity into integrity of the system. No election is without risks for what they do is try to balance the risk and integrity with access because its important so they can express their voice and we can build a house with no doors and windows but it wouldnt havee much use so we ae trying very hard to build a system that every eligible voter can participate in and i think in large part we have done a good job of that. Number one, we are going to need to look for expanded voting. We see that in every single state i anticipate every state will see a record that is a good thing for those voters. Its a very effective option but for many of us might need assistance it might not be the best one for them and one thing we have to remember its the election which the largest number show up to vote, these are those that never voted before they were much more familiar. Its a form of funding that could be prone to a errors. My second point is that isnt going to save us. Its going to be important but we shouldnt expect a lot of in person. 1. 1 Million People voted by ma mail. 800,000 people still showed up to vote so we are going to need to have ample opportunities to vote in person and they need to be different than weve experienced in the past. They need to be larger to accommodate the social distancing for instance. There may be present consolidations. It may be a good thing and it may be that there are more places people ca can go to thate single place. The single factor for the toby is the director mentioned, the polling workers, getting enough people to volunteer to serve. Its such an important job i cannot recommend more to all of you who are watching this if you have the time please volunteer, get trained. We are going to get millions of workers in november and every official i talked to has a real challenge should. The last thing is Voter Education. Everyone is going to experience a different voting experience than what theyve seen in the past. They will see different options and deadlines at different locations in the polling places. Those are all going to need to be expressed over time and i think even as we get closer and closer we will also see Court Decisions that change things. That aspect of the education creating is going to be important so the voters can plan. Its going to be essential. We have to make a plan thats something we didnt have to do before. Similarly we have to do that when we vote and the key to that is learning about your options early. The fewer people whoon show up e better its going to be so thats what we are seeing overall and im fairly optimistic its getting through. How do people find out in most places you can apply now. The best place to go is the national i association that created o a website and at the e direct you to your state official site. Theres about ten you can click to take you to the appropriate site but if you know which county you live in you can go directly to the site of the volunteer but definitely try to volunteer and that is the best way to do it and then as early as possible so they can get you trained earlier. Theres a lot of complexity is this what you see that others have devised for how we can tackle this it varies by state. Theres a lot of confusion and misunderstanding of the lawaw surrounding elections in particular federal elections. Theres a way to understand what happens in advance and a way to understand the law that governs what happens after. When we think about the sort of federalism issues between the federal government and the state its in both simultaneously so we have a lot of assertions and fear of the federal government getting involved and achieving an election and authoritarian concern. The constitution says that certification was limited, compulsory. Its the state relying on a degree of support. One of the things i completely share in two places, so one is that congress hasnt managed to pass comprehensive Bipartisan Legislation because the those that provided additional fundi funding. Theres large bipartisan agreement on the core issues republicans and democrats do agree and somehow we havent managed to get over the little stuff and it leaves a sort of more vulnerable. The other thingne we should know is we are having a conversation that is fundamentally about the deterrence and ultimately we are focused on the nationstate threats and tools that are not held to be secure against attacks. We are thinking about the traditional diplomacy of the foreignpolicy. We are sending a message to other countries that dont even try. Its not going to work because we secure the system but youll see the consequences if you do. And i dont think that that has successfully occurred over the last three years so it does leave us ine this moment its a conversation about deterrence by denial how we secure from attack. I shared the view they will be able to come in and change the outcome. Its a relatively low risk. We need to be focused on the possibility of the foreign adversary and nonstate adversary with a degree of uncertainty in this situation with which an expert could say i only have 90 confidence. If an adversary can come of the winners will do the rest. We have a natural system designed to take the uncertainty and amplify it and i think that this is a moment which we need to startrt thinking about the legal mechanisms and how we would go about disabling the questions in the event of david inserts this degree of uncertainty. That is a state law question. Peoplele who remember the 2,000 banking chad debacle. Shouldnt be anxious to sort of repeat that. But im standing part of the Education System at this point that you need to behe more pat patient. Resetting the way the media communicate with the public on these issues. The rolls in florida off of it this way. The rules in ohio operates this way and that iss part of reinforcing institutional credibilityti and messaging to e public we do have a system thats sophisticated and robust to tackle these questions head on. If there is a concern we dont just need to hide them, we do have the mechanism to subtleties and really start think about how the variation looks across the states. A little bit on the idea that something will happen or something is likely to happen and how are we going to get into a placto aplace from the air ine American Public has confidence in the idea that we could conduct a free and fair electi election. People are very engaged and i think it is at this point its not the whole system or the onesizefitsall a lot of the questions and concerns people have about messing with the system itte would be difficult o mess with 50 systems simultaneously. We did thank him for his contributions before he had to leave. [inaudible] that would be a legitimate order you would know theres a lot of people asking questions here worrying even our allies might try to kind of see some sort of benefit of the outcomes. Is it possible to mess with Voting Machines and the mailing and systems and where do we stand on a cyber attack or a tax break for an adversary. Does this complexity help us to in fact avoid some of the problems people are most concerned about so suggesting that it could be advantageous and makes a tabulation of the whole process more convoluted. This is the tensio attentiond argument the heart of the government was making an advance on 2016. Dont worry, we know that each system may not be fully secure but there are thousands of systems and the reality is if any one individual in the United States new the precise county and number of votes that they would need to change the outcome of the election, that would make many, many millions of dollars. And with uncertainty with any complexity added to the system that people are not accustomed to that has become an opportunity to raise real questions for her to amplify questions and i think there are legitimate questions to ask that it is incumbent upon experts that there is no evidence in 2016 any vote was changed was an Intelligence Community released a comprehensive report that shared a lot of information aon about what happened that should give people confidence to think about how we can translate the high degree of reliability although not until 2018 to inform the public conversation so the public can have confidence. And you had a personal discussion but we get so fixated that if we all this and there would be much less room so its where you have a low turnout and certain precincts with the opportunities. So the potential crisis with participation. So it is hard forensic evidenceua that creates real questions that you are not able to answer and even that tens of thousands. And those that have around 30 percent. And there are always margins that look like that. That would mute the impact and doesnt solve the problem. And with that and that each issue needs to be confronted and its a comprehensive effort tons secure elections and that is one thing people figuring out to make sure people vote and they can get that Security Posture much faster. And with the Civil Rights Movement and then to gave women the right to vote so even in other countries or sometimes this country to hear that they say only certain people should be able tobo vote so as citizens of the United States everybody should vote and do their part. And mike will be pleased to hear so people who have the means you want to play a more active role with the integrity of getting people out to vote what can those of donors for the election of 2020 . Or organizations like you and what people can do you Like Research . The only way there are publicprivate partnerships for example in the Funds Available for this type of activity actually to be in this public arena. Willis informants away the technology is locked in place i would recommend to argue for a change in election and technology that isis detrimental in those jurisdictions there thats just bads news to start but there still somes opportunities that will lead the way to a statewide audit in november there are some primaries coming up with otherot opportunities and again more good news states are already moving in that direction trying to do better with moreeey audits we will see more audits than we have ever seen before by an exponential factor in november thats all very goody, news. The biggest thing that voters can do right now is the goal of many adversaries right now is to diminish citizens confidence in elections one of the things they like to see is for people to opt out of stop participating and stop voting. In the United States we already saw from that perspective turnout of 60 percent is verye rare over 50 percent occurs only once every four years all other elections are less than 50 percent that goes on for quite some time mostly turnout has been declining over time there have been blips in the radar with 2181 of them. But that is a challenge. 2018 is one of them. Butur its also fantastic as well every a single vote is a data point someone is interfered with Voter Registration database every time you check your status there is an opportunityty to catch that problem if somebody is to intercept the mail ballots every time a real voter goes to vote is anan opportunityy to catch that person there are so many checks and balances it is virtuallynd impossible i would never say impossible to change in the way to be undetected. But there are ways the adversaries can interfere in a way that would be detected and cause chaos look at the illinois registration database intrusion that is exactly what hait looks like. The russian gr you were sitting inside the database two weeks undetected accessing data at a very low rate over two weeks and they were not notice that right before the president ial convention was to start they were accessing information at 1000 times greater at that point so than the official said there was no way we couldnt detected we shut it down right away. That is a reasonable inference they wanted it to be known they were inside the database. Illinois is not aba swing state with the president ial election is just a database they can get into. So voting is thes key. So how do they encourage more voting we just released a report lastel month about the decline of Voter Registration as a result of the pandemic people are not going to Motor Vehicle agencies anymore that will be an ongoing challenge so thinking about ways they can help reach potential new voters with information will be key i found a separate nonprofit which 30 states now belong to to help themem reach out to eligible the registers citizens between 20 and 25 million of those individuals like george michigan kentucky and florida all do that around september 2020. Those kinds of efforts can be encouraged ine anything that can get more official t formation is the best use of resources at this point. Obviously people collect for thoseop things but with the private sector is that the case does it have to be official . There is a lot of opportunities for Voter Registration the practical limitation is more than the legal with the need for social distancing but there are significant restrictions that can occur on publicprivate partnerships and some states have the ability to partner with philanthropy to assist where the efforts with Voter Education others have strict laws for outsiders friends i know talking with a lot of states to figure out ways to navigate the system there are a lot of highly responsible voters representing a wide variance of political views trying to assist in this regard and connect those in the right way is something we have been working on. Not that this is politicized in any particular way. And related the senior director of the National Security council and the risk to that infrastructure not just to the people or the data so thinking like a terrorist and then thinking exactly the same way would you consider that a disruption of the power grid . So the grid system is vulnerable. And then to see it in november. And then to do all kinds of things at once. So watch what has happened in russia. So putin just put himself back into the picture to have these amendments votedha on to go to more president ial terms. On their worried about the low turnout and the legitimacy software worried about the covid environment russia is the largest territory in the world so this is an ongoing process about how much effort they went to because they needed to have a legitimate votegh so he could say he can have the general backing to the constitutional amendment so the question of what happens of Creative Destruction we can imagine weather events and storms and then Mother Nature getting in on the act what they should be worried about what have we already done to address them on these issues . What has been done there has been a dramatic increase of early voting across the t country the last two decades to the point talking about election day be informants away pretty much starts two months from today in person early voting will start in the middle of september the september 15 or 18 and instructed to think what has transpired in the last 45 days and think about what can transpire in those days in between september 18 and november 3rd . The end goal of the adversary is not to elect a particular candidate the end goal of places like russia and china as tois recognize the core way the system functions and to remove that they want to remove the government the consent of the governed the exact same reason other elements of Critical Infrastructure because if they can take out a power grid or a gas line it shows the government is not capable of protecting the American People from those sorts of things it removes our trust in government to do that we have done a good job and that relatively historic lows and the performance of the pandemic has removed even more that is a massive vulnerability in a matter what technology is used for voting whatever technology is used it the 45 day window people will be voting based on different information love to get the story four days before the election 1982 ross perot went on national tv to accuse the Bush White House about his daughters wedding and the thought process at the time and i may have change peoples t minds if you think back to 45 days ago and the approval of the president and the federal government and an institution where it was then and now and then think about doing that at the start of flu season you have a very fluid ground on which we will hold this election and whatever the results however it comes out you have to recognize the consent of the governed is at the core of any argument that happens from the political process argument especially if we get into cases during their remarks the system that is built do you have a ten or 20000 like that we saw in florida 527 votes at the end of the day you can have problems but it is doable. We havent talked about 380,000 and vote difference in new mexico. It is doable. So how a judge rules on thes dynamic changes that might have to be made throughout that election. The 45 days sets the foundation for what challenges postelection could happen once the election lawyers come in when there was 20 million of late fees because that is how things actually happen. A couple miles away from primary election day we scheduled that goes through legal process. All hours are extended for whether or transportation and challenges. And they are natural risk managers dealing with that everyy time david mentioned that at doj every single election for the civil rights challenge there are ways to lay the foundation with realtime changes how it is administered so the question is what controls do we have . Is that in a fair way and what will that lay the foundation to recognize we have three weeks to certify those results cracks that there is a lag between the mass gathering event so what will happen in the intervening three weeks to interpret the rules and now way that the governed have consented to the choices that arere made . Thank you. Coming into the next panel with those questions that are coming up and we have already answered some of these. I will share all the questions david you will be doing events as well so over the course of time all these questions will be addressed for example the attacks on theea Covid Research that what we talked about before and then just people generally to be worried of what can be done and i live the questions with the weakest link and then with the voter turnout. And then dead depending on which precinct with the legal challenges were those margins are tight would you like to leave us with anything before we talk about the specific issues. I will give a very brief plea that all the issues we talke about here rest on systemic issues one of the challenge of Election Security they are run every single month every single month of hrthe year hundreds of thousands of times getting the publics attention to muster the political will necessary to make longterm systemic changes. With safe relationships with vendors and mandatory cybersecurity standards. These are critical to the consent of governed and the electoral legitimacy to the extent you are sitting here right now im really concerned about this also to think about how to translate into advocating for those changes that might not necessarily help the candidates in november but then address the longterm questions call your senator and get yourself educatedel the bread and butter reforms that will be necessary otherwise every four years we will be back here having the same conversation how we can make things better on the margi margin. Thats a great point. Very briefly, remember our adversaries are targeting the confidence and democracy in a when from whatever our perspective is we lose confidence we feel like our Voice Matters less the arguments come from across the political spectrum to make arguments why we should entrust the outcome of elections its important for us to be aware of the confirmation a bias. We are getting information that tells us that we are right and it feels good to be right. And the messages tell us we should entrust the other parties Election Officials , because they try to undermine democracy, that serves the anti democratic purpose it is not democratic versus Republican Party and we should be very skeptical and not trust the Democratic Institutions there is still a lot of work to do we are not perfect and across the finish line that we need to have confidence in thee election system and on november 4th we will say what a Great Success by republican and democratic officials thats better than being angry. Dealingea with the issues with our own propensity and that is a National Security threat and undermining our own confidence and that the next panel will talk about. And communications is important for everybody involved in the process and to show the way we went to commend all of you hope we can continue the partnership with brookingsng and for the future. So we will moderate the next session. The Deputy Director here at brookings in charge of icartificial intelligence with emerging technology work. And then for the colleagues to work on this. Thank you for that great introduction and with the wonderful and Insightful Panel i cannot imagine a more and better discussion with our colleagues in a echo for our viewers at home the become informed and active and we will build on the conversation of the prior colleagues but the security of the ballot box but also focus on with the disinformation. So not just infrastructure but we secure that and we are thrilled to be joined by three amazing colleagues first the senior fellow from the German Marshall Fund and previously served in the variety of state department and National Security council by far one of the sharpest minds i know of in this Operation Space were delighted to have her join us this afternoon. Second david is where he works on the latest threats serving as intelligence on National Security we are delighted to have him with us today to share expertise and experience. That we currently have the president and ceo but previously wonderful fellow colleague with the global work online information so will come back home its a pleasure to have you with us. Went to start with what exactly this information is so important and since you were one of the first analyst to talk about this information what is the rolebo originally and that led us to the point were at now . It is wonderful to see all of you and just to get directly to your question for me and i asked why from back in 2014 most americans only woke up to the problem in that context of our elections in 2016 very well known russian activities and elsewhere which is in the news this weekend and i hope we can talk about the recent reported cyberattack on the gre unit the exact same unit involved so it is interesting to talk about the reasons forch that knowing whats happening in 2014 salome remember to support the revolution in ukraine and at that time to work for Research Purposes and i started to notice to ukraine on the ground so i knew the physiology what was seeping into to be the misinformed narrative around the idea not a democratic revolution but a fascist to but the typical criminal and media narrative i was surprised to see that in english language and also german language media at the time so i got the sense the russian propaganda was a bigger issue than i thought i thought it just had to deal with ukraine and it has been the target of russian propaganda on propaganda for a long time we are pretty familiar so these narratives are now appearing into the main street english language media and i thought this is a real problem so then to realize in dc nowhere on the radar of policymakers because somewhere over there but by the time 2016 rolls around those that have spent time i cant say i wasnt surprised and with the brazen nature that they are very similar to basically testing and then to come and 2016 and other European Countries after that basically every single event every single election now has an influence behind it so now with the reality we are living in its hard to imagine an election today and we dont have to be concerned. You mentioned the russian hacker earlier but what do you see now of what you are concerned with . My biggest concern now is actually not russia and what i mean by that is now the toolkit beyond the information environment has been out there for a long time and there hasnt been a focus to counter and deter these kinds of operations other states authority been using and found the perceptive from the statesponsored influences my concern is have even dealt with the russia problem him and that any nonstate actor that has a profit driving incentive to be involved in the event that has a lot of eyeballs that is why there is such Incredible Opportunity for the state actors with political agendas so the biggest concern is the evolution because and expose how these work on social media what we have seen from the russian activities they are getting much better obfuscating their origin and then to identify these campaigns straight out of st. Petersburg at the time and then they gave very powerful to contribute to trace back these accounts are they were originating in that they are blending in with domestic voices to the local actors and this Information Warfare by proxy is much more difficult and thats just want to be honest. The other one i would be surprised is already happening ishe Community Groups with other social media and the factory dont have that much incentive for nonamerican and platform and we dont have any insight into what is d happening with this information because they are not subject to the same transparency values and that is very much embedded in western companies that they also face to be committed to those values and principles there is a lot more ways to obfuscate which makes it much more difficult to identify and a much busier environment weve never dealt with the bad actor now there are dozens of bad actors to deal with. You raised a dozen points but you referenced china a few times and you have been doing a tremendous amount of writing so can you give your sense of what it is happening and why is it important if they think of this information as the russian issue and that it is broader than that now. Looking at china and russia and with that manipulation and to get to the broader set of information. The reason and that manipulation as a means of influencing state power and then controlling manipulating that information if its free and the hands of people and then as outlined to advance the tactics in a way that weekends and undermines democracy. But with china its been aat little different so with the republic of china that to look at these narratives about china as well as those that didnt want to have a voice and it really had to do it those that were about china. Its not trying to t sell itself to the world and with that strategy so weve seen over the past year to accelerate during coveted turned out to be a far more aggressive election so the first and the chinese official from the Media Outlets and the kind of stuff that goes silent we see a whole lot of that a lot of that is with covid but with the development and actual disinformation particularly around covid19 and that it deflects blame but the second is the origin of the virus. By state officials and state media it is very similar. There were a lot of similarities there in the first time we saw the chinese actors fall into this practice but a lot of content is aimed at defending democracy. So around the george floyd protest look at the chaos in the us so the protesters have that democracy and to have that misunderstanding of that potential. But that narrative similarly you can see earlier this week where they tweeted isnt it crazy there are 270 yearolds that are running and that was the basis of her headline now this is from chinese officials is not about china but the democracy and the platform to do so. I thinkk its important that in particular to understand what china is doing is not just about that itself the information model when they do that with the infrastructure so its important if you look at those challenges. That isha incredibly helpful. I want to come back to that point like what we see in china back quickly with that governancece on foreign on social media platforms is that something you see as part of chinas efforts from the private sector and the government . How do you see that relationship in the chinese context . I think that platform is part of the conversation but when it comes to ticktock to be wholly independent from the Chinese Government we could have a long conversation with thena allies governing that data that all organizations and the ways in the china context but lately some of the commentary of tik tok that we really dont have transparency report that is the ability to have better insight and then to understand whats happening there. And then it was misunderstood a little bit and i do have concerns about that also but that those companies that dont have the ability for their citizens and in china that is the reality. And what is the problem is just video sharing. There is no policy. That all of these platforms you can see that and theres no reason. But that ticktock platform it is a total black box to us the algorithms we know that it uses internally. So now the quandary for me is that platform to deny access. But in terms of two separate. And that needs to be a very broad and strategic conversation. And with that information and model. And that informs democracy and as we have seen we can definitely take action. Across the slate of issues. And for that democratic model that first i went to turn it over to david and with respect to russia and china its harder to attribute and then to identify them in some ways. And if you can talk about that in the terms you are seeing no now, that would be great state i thank you for the opportunity to join this conversation. My team focuses on both the coordination and what new tactics do they anticipate being as a go against different platforms so touching on the tactics we are starting to see across these operations. So first what i wanted to call out are these conversations when i was still back in government focused heavily on foreigny interference because public attention was is focused on the Research Agency and to a lesser extent the activities from the dnc that as we have Enforcement Actions with facebook using those tactics are domestic in nature within the country where they are targeting and operated byep individuals who understand the language and the culture. That has created an interesting challenge our policy is foreign and domestic agnostic but the conversations are we should approach the issue legally or legislatively from a National Security perspective there is more to talk to her on the domestic front we are seeing that trend increase as time goes on for takedowns from around the world all for those operations have strong domestic ties. The second trend is the Operational Security of the networks has improved considerably because as we and other platforms and other entities take more aggressive action they learn from the ways we discover them that there is an interesting parallel as they become more effective at hiding it complicates the ability to reach a broader audience so its harder to be loud and reach a bigger group of people that then in addition to becoming better at hiding activity on any specific platform distributed across multiple platforms so in many cases 2016 and 2017 is straightforward to take down the accounts and in doing so the pages they run go away but now with the domain registrar so if you remove the social media sid side, both mentioned we also see and increased reliance to enable these types of operations the best example was the effort of the ira to use the Network Based in ghana to target the United States but also to give them one more step to obscure what was happening. And from a trend perspective we saw this in 2018 with the general election and mark harvey noted that many of the operations is to undermine Public Confidence in the election itself and in the democratic system and institution based on operation in 2018 the goal is to get people to believe the political system political discourse online and the media was undermined by russian actors we call this perception acting and the challenge it presents to us to counter claims of widespread interference you have to be transparent but also build partnership between Society Experts so that when there are extraordinary claims like we saw 2018 with a undermine public communications, we can push back on that to help clarify the evidence that we have is actually happening. Those are some of the main trends we have been seeing. This goes to what david just said about these kinds of operations with the ecosystem approach with the online entity coordination that also highlights the issues raised the other side on the platform side we dont see that same coordinated response so the malicious actors carried out information increasingly wide net to seey activities reverberating across Instagram Youtube website sort media or even more subversive like yours or read it because to that extent it would it be possible the way that comes out is the policies we have oseen with content control and vc a lot of differences how platforms are responding especially around Public Health misinformation and that is prohibited like twitter but not on facebook or somewhere else and that allows those loopholes to continue these kinds of operations to be carried out even if we are responding in these other ways. Thats a natural segue. Not just whats going on but what to do about it i want to get to the policy side of the question but you raised the issue so i would be curious to hear what facebook is doing to address this. Obviously anything facebook is doing to address the information on the platform. The four main ways we addressed we deliberately had a certain set off deceptive behaviors even if we cannot attribute you to a specific individual orev group if you are engaged in this core set of deceptive behaviors there is enough for this one trust to take action that addresses foreign and domestic and that challenge around the attribution to becometo harder. It is the network dad is misleading then we can take action. The second piece to the Cross Platform with information sharing is the Important Pillar of the work. And there has been a couple of examples with the iranian operations where we might find in operation to share information about that network and then we will see another takedown may be at the exact same time. That cycle of information and sharing can help us get our arms around with that multi societal threat. The last piece to hit on one of the benefits the operations were in the battle space we cannot control. And with that platform to make those with that leveraging aspect of the platform. In the ad may locations. And then to become public. And with the benefits in this space is it forces you and to take a bunch of steps to build the infrastructure that you need and the second part of that and then to build more resilience and working with partners and broader society. And now leaving those broader communities. At the outset to mention secondary infection that the British Government just mentioned and in may of 2019 our investigative teams to uncover that secondary infection and when we did that a completely different operation in 2016 and 2017 and that. To create personas and then and that may 2019. To be far more sophisticated across multiple platforms and the goal seem to be more and amplification of forged documents depending on the time we are looking at. The secondary infection and disclosures where things became the Effective Response with our partners that graphic a and does excellent work and then we can take what we shared with them and then to identified over 300 websites and then to pull the curtain back across the entire ecosystem so that combination Public Disclosure and then partnerships with researchers to pull all of the threads together from multiple platforms gets to a place where we can get our arms around these complex regulations. And to appreciate the information sharing within the private sector but also curious on your thoughts and what needs to happen from a policy perspective. And its really important. Government and with the adversaries and to share information that one of the things is that that we dont want the government on social media. But domestically but at the end of the day but with that type of information in the government sees happening from foreign actors. And we have made progress on that. But unfortunately in my view then i have some concerns of the protections and sharing information between the government and the private sector. On with selfregulation the regulatory conversation about whether platforms are biased. And was certain kind of people so the real conversation we need to be having that not the vast majority of us in this phase are talking about that actually when you talk about data and frankly if you look the difference between the democratic model and the authoritarian model. And how we think about that. But the conversation that needs to be happening we need to be having those conversations about security and dad is significant and know that sounds like a bigger conversation but actually the data feedback to service the information so i think when it comes to regulation its not necessarily about the platform itself so what is this look like . And as democracies. So in the last thing i will say that the one thing that i do not think should be up for regulation is i do not believe like terrorism or violent extremism i do not believe any democracy but the good news is the majority of the challenges there is a lot of mutual ways to look at that challenge. And then to moderate and that is their right. And one of the key questions and then with that type type of governance that youre talking about. I will turn it over to use with that policy and framework. But the point is so important because we are talking about disinformation and influences the preferred term that once you actually start to think about what we do about it we cannot get away from having a much broader discussion on the agenda. And the problem looking at specific case studies for example its pretty and even to come up with the golden goose with the Regulatory Environment but the big issue has been a focus on an illegal content to expand the definition with things we can all agree should not be in the Public Domain like child pornography extreme violence or terrorism or things of that nature but most disinformation doesnt fit into that category but we have seen from a lot of European Countries a desire to push that agenda to expand the illegal content with the free speech laws with European Countries are much less expansive version. So what i see happening working together with democracies is so critical the internet is not bound by National Borders so the Regulatory Framework cannot adjust what we are talking about but the problem where we are today is we have a hodgepodge regulation coming from all over europe and the European Commission to come up with the regulatory agenda and then the United States that are quite misguided with antitrust to be the panacea but it wont be. But what i see now is a huge risk of merging and with regulation and then depending on what happens in november that we to come to some middle ground and with that agenda and a lot of ideas out there that have been out there for years but were just not getting there. Thats we need to be looking toward the private sector and to civil a line and Civil Society to have input with the regulatory agendas. And as part of that so im putting the question but theres not a single example i am getting some things right but we havent seen a comprehensive approach to this. One of the things weve seen this week what the Trump Administration has authorized within the information and campaign and im curious there is one issue of defending the attacks and im curious if thats in line with what a democracy should be doing. Very quickly i will say we do need to be on the offensive to build resilience. But that doesnt mean that they do what we do and they do it to them. That is what is happening here and then do Different Things and to build a coherent front the democratic Digital Domain as a value that is universally desired we need to see that as an asset. And as afghan happens is not incorrect we need to get out of the whack a mole approach. But the followthrough is not the right one. Adversaries and competitors e have a formative author if we are constantly on the defensive, we are not necessarily up to something but also either we are responding in a symmetric way that is to our disadvantage so we need an affirmative agenda of what we want to achieve and go from there and that means a couple of things. Not just because it is the right thing from a moral perspective but because in the context between the democratic models, living our values, we cant win if we do not live our values so that is one big piece of it. The other piece again given the asymmetry are you ever going to win in a faceoff in a race to the bottom is definitely not us. We also [inaudible] in terms of the vulnerability in our infrastructure we start to open this can of worms we are the ones most likely so about the authorized edition i think it is the wrong kind of thing. I do think that maybe they need to get away from this because it isnt always clear whats what but they do need to be assertive and one of the papers i wrote my colleague she uses a parallel thaavenues around the contested territory and she talks about the freedom of Information Operations where we used this openness in an offensive way than the authoritarian competitors and use the information again but in that way dot as it is organized but we do need to find a way to harvest the information. Were almost out of time so i want to have one last kind of lightning round and go around to each of you. If there is one kind of take away for the audience concerned about this information in the next election, what would you say are there things we should be concerned about and proactively doing . Just to clarify is it we as individuals . Lets say we as individuals but if you wanted to governance, feel free to go government if you would rather go there. This may sound a bit cliche, but i do think that having critical information is part of the citizens responsibility. I dont think we given that we live in a Digital World where they have informational time and it may seem they are asking people to do too much and certainly there is a role for governments and the private sector have to play to do the hard work to figure out what is a legitimate story and what is not in the algorithms they have no control over, but i do think that when you are on social media are in the case of some of the members in my family, getting email chains, they are a huge way some share rating content especially perhaps some of my parents generation. When we receive content, look at this first before you share it and dont immediately just share something because of the headline. Dont immediately assume that its true because its online, and i do think a lot of people dont take the time. Take a deep breath before they click or before they click a share or like. If its coming from your cousin or someone you know, that in itself doesnt mean its accurate. And just taking a moment to think about a lot of this kind of quick beta stuff does this confirm the things from the past from major outlets, but i think the big issue here outside of the scope of this discussion is the fact that very much an increasingly we are living in a very different reality in the country and that very much overlaps the kind of polarization and economic inequalities we are seeing, the generational inequalities, people in one type of community have a completely different interpretation of events and some people ar were living in another type of community. So, we tend to not see or not want to believe things that dont conform to our worldview so i think we could all use a little bit of openness and understanding even if it may sound ridiculous to us sometimes and to have a little patience instead of judging them immediately for ideas they know not to be true or to strongly disagree with, and i think if we start there, we might go a long way. Thank you, alina. Im going to turn to you and then we will close out with laura. I think thats alinas points are selling it. If theres anything i could add to that, it would be to remember that this proble problem is thee of society problem. That isnt to say we dont have a responsibility to get things right in facebook. We do. Theres a huge responsibility to finding obligations and remove them, but we have to be thinking about how to build resilience in every part of society. Tech companies doing their jobs and keeping them safe on the platforms and the government sharing information when they need to and using weapons of the state to protect their people in the society continues to hold all accountable. The other thing i would say and emphasizes the importance of being careful about speculation around disinformation and operations around elections. I think there is a proclivity to jump to the assumption the person you are disagreeing with is a robot or the candidate you didnt like one because of a troll operation. Something that stuck with me ever since before i joined facebook is a really good brilliant influence operation at carnegie now that wrote a piece about how this is a fun house held up to society. It stuck with me because one of the challenges here is to solve the influence operations problem as best as one can come is to go after the underlining fractures exploited by the campaigns. The ira doesnt create the positions that they attempt to exploit. The solution here is one in which we do need to think about how as individuals we can have the Community Work to manage some of the divides that make us vulnerable to these campaigns. And then maybe the last piece of johns is incredibly important here and we are properly asking questions about where the information is coming from and seeking the information as they come to a conclusion so that is always went out anall i would ad appreciate the opportunity to talk about it with you all. Laura, over to you. [inaudible] im excited to have them validated now. I will be brief. The most important thing people can do, i agree with everything alina and david laid out, but it is a democratic process. The goal is often to make up the integrity sweeney to double down on those positions in whatever way that things but its absolutely essential democracy doesnt have problems if we dont address the challenges that if we donbutif we dont sn weve already lost the battle. I think that is as good a point to end on a. Thank you both for joining us and thank you to the audience for taking part today. Its been a privilege to have the conversation. Thank you