Need. We help in a few ways. We craft and adopt the voluntary Voting System guidelines, acredit Test Laboratories and certify Voting Systems, serve as the Clearing House of information and best practices related to elections and we also maintain the National MailVoter Registration form which can be used to register to vote, update Registration Information with a new name or a address, or register with a political party. Develop recommendations and standards that address the needs of voters, state and local election leaders and other election stake holders. At the end of the day we work to ensure every eligible american has the opportunities to vote independently, privately, and with confidence in our nations election system. We do everything in our power to make sure Election Officials have what they need to support that. Learn more at eac. Gov. Well, good morning. Good morning. My name is matt masterson. I am the chairman of the Election Assistance Commission. I want to thank first all of you for being here and engaging in this discussion with us, attending this meeting today, and participating in a kickoff event for the 2018 election, which i know for the Election Officials in the audience today youve already started long ago. Its just a kickoff for us here today, right. First, ive been instructed to go through the everimportant housekeeping items. Its a tall order but i think im up to it. The first item this is being recorded both by our folks and cspan, so please silence all devices that you have, make sure we have everything turned off so we dont have ringing and buzzing throughout the course of the event. Second is, the rest rooms are located out that door, to the left. Theres a sign there so if you need them, just feel free to go and theres staff out there that can direct you if you cant find it. Also, eac staff are omni present here, buzzing around, running around. They have their hands raised back there. If you need anything at all, any questions, what not, please grab myself or one of the ac staff or one of the fellow commissioners and well be glad to help you out and get you what need. We appreciate you being here today. So with that, i just want to start with a couple opening remarks to tee up the discussion for today. The purpose of todays discussion is to explore the most pressing issues facing our election system today by having a discussion with those who are most impacted. Thats Election Officials, thats voters, those who research and study and those who participate in the public discussions and engage the process. Its my sincere hope and the hope of the commission that todays event will result in a meaningful dialog and conversation that helps to identify areas of emphasis for this year, tease out nuance challenges facing this elections community, and tease up much needed conversations regarding the security, access, integrity of the elections process. In doing so, i would like to start by introducing our opening speaker and we could think of no one better to tee up those conversations in that nuanced discussion than the man that will open the conference today. He is a friend, he is a geek, a selfproclaimed geek, so i dont think im out of line saying that, and hes someone who has looked at studied and engaged elections in a way that few have. So i would like to introduce doug chapin, the director of the program and excellence in administration at the Humphrey School of public affairs. He came to that position after ten years at the Pugh Charitable trusts where he served as the director of election initiatives for the pew center of the states. Many of us start our day reading dougs blog in the morning to begin things off with a cup of coffee, and today, were fortunate enough to get his take here live and in person. Those of you who know doug, he will share, im sure, some stories, some quips and thoughts, and most importantly, tee up what were looking at for this 018 election season. So let me introduce my friend, doug chapin. [ applause ] good morning, everybody. My name is doug. Usually we say, good morning doug. Good morning. Thank you. Its so nice to see so many familiar faces in the audience today. When matt called a few days ago and asked if i would be willing to do this, i was incredibly honored but also aware a little bit of being like that friend whos always available to help with things like moves and the like. He isnt necessarily good at it, but he always answers the phone and so im happy to be that kind of friend to matt and the eac. But seriously, though, i do want to thank the eac, not just matt, but his fellow commissioners as well as the countless friends and colleagues and former students i have at the eac. The eac was a tremendous source of hope when it was created as part of the help america vote act of 2002, it was a tremendous source of frustration when it disappeared for several years a while back, and has really been an amazing, amazing asset to the field since its return. I think thats on not just the commissioners but all of the staff and folks they work with. The eac has become a center of gravity in the Election Community that it has sorely needed and i think will serve it well, not just in 2018, but going forward. So just want some quick remarks. The other promise i made to matt was that no matter what time we started, i would have us done by 10 00 for the first panel. Its like woody allens quip about cuisine, that the food is bad but the portions are small. So i will be i will be as brief as possible, but just to tee us up for today, a couple things. The first is, im fond of saying and you will get a lot of my favorite sayings because its free and you cant get a refund, but im fond of saying that the best thing about beating your head against a brick wall is how good it feels to stop. And i dont know about you all, but in many ways i feel like 2017 was a brick wall against which im happy no longer to be beating my head. Various efforts at the National Level and across the country that i think were more interference than helpful to Election Officials across the country and so to paraphrase the old country song, i think im happy to see 2017 in our rearview mirror. All thats left is a federal election year, the 2018 federal election. The good news as it always is, is that as an election official you dont have to sweat the small stuff. The bad news, of course, is that when it comes to elections there is no small stuff. And i think whats significant about 2018 is that the what passes for small stuff in elections is get bigger and bigger every year. I think the one thing that we have to acknowledge and i always tell people im an election geek, not a political junky, but i think you have to be blind not to recognize that 2018 is going to be a very high energy and likely very high turnout election in many communities across the country. Were seeing races that have not been contested in a long time, talk about them being contested, i think you can see the energy from november 2017 and december and see that there is an interest in voting in whats called an offyear election we dont normally see. With that high energy and with that likely high turnout youre likely to have close elections. Anybody here from virginia . Yeah. Alabama . Right. Hell hath no furry like a tied or almost tied election. I think the nations eyes will be not just on the eyes nations eyes will not just be on the work youre doing but on the outcome itself. That will raise the stakes in a way which is challenging in 2018. Something else that hasnt changed and to my knowledge hasnt changed, i check election line every day and dont see much evidence of it, budgets are still tight. We talk about how important it is to run elections securely and accessbly, efficiently and with integrity and dont always see policymakers at the federal, state and local levels ponying up. I think its become a job requirement, if not part of the formal Job Description of an election official, to do more with less. With that high energy, high potential turnout election, were not necessarily seeing tremendous amount of budgetary investment. What you will have to continue to do, what the Election Community will have to do going forward, is find a way to meet ap ever higher demand for service with a stable or maybe even declining amount of revenue over time. Were also seeing potential changes in laws. Those of you who are attorneys or paying attention more closely or just ohioans will know that the Supreme Court across town is going to hear argument today in an ohio case regarding application of the national Voter Registration act about the impact of nonvoting on list maintenance, depending on what the Supreme Court decides in that case, we could see significant changes in many states in the way in which voter lists are managed and maintained across the country. That becomes a moving target in the year when moving targets arent necessarily helpful. Were also seeing growing interest in places like california and elsewhere in weight now known ive seen i saw amber and jennifer earlier, whats known as the colorado model of Election Administration and election day where voters are mailed ball lots an then have an option to drop them off, mail them back, bring them to a polling place on or before election day. Were starting to see interest in vote centers, vote by mail, changing the way that voters both receive, cast and return their ballots across the country. That is a moving target and the good news is, is that legislatures tend to pay more attention in election years since they are on the ballot. You can tell how dated this conversation is. There are two things that every elected official in america thinks theyre an expert in one is smoking on airplanes, the dated part, and the other elections, because theyve all run in them. The good news is, policymakers tend to Pay Attention in election years to election laws. The bad news is, is that in many ways election years are the worst time to change election laws because it shift the ground underneath those of you who need do the work. So the courts, the legislature, sometimes candidates will push for changes in the way in which elections are run across the country. Finally, there is the 800pound elephant russian what have you in the room of Cyber Security. I know chairman masterson and other folks out there have often said that Election Officials need to be i. T. Officials, but i think in many ways Cyber Security and the need to focus on not just the physical security of your election system, but the digital and Cyber Security of your elections is something thats moving from the other duties as a signed part of the Job Description to an actual line tiitem or paragrh or full section of your Job Description going forward. Thats one of those things that i know everyone in the field is incredibly committed to doing and wants to make sure they do right. The problem is, is that in many ways were catching up to the bad guys or to sort of the advanced good guys in the field and learning about how exactly to do that. There are some very highlevel things that i know are already in place and were going to hear about those today, but there are other things that each of us and the people we work with are going to have to do a better job of, better password management, thinking about how securely we backup our information and where we secure it, knowing how to spot, respond or not, to phishing and other attempts to get at the data that we work with on a daily basis. One thing that i want to point out that i dont think gets a lot of attention in the area of Cyber Security, i think a lot of the focus in the country right now on Cyber Security is on the impact that the security of the election system can have on the integrity of the outcome. We want to make sure that the people who won the elections are the right people and that we didnt somehow corrupt that result through intrusions into the election system. That is incredibly important. I want to suggest that in many ways Election Security is about something even more important, and that is the security of individual voters. All of us are sources of tremendous amount of personally identifiable data linked to things that we care a lot about, our life savings, our homes, our bank accounts, our details of our personal lives we dont necessarily want shared with the highest bidder. In many ways voter records and election files are keys into those vaults for individual voters. While its important to think about Cyber Security as a way to protect the integrity of the election system in the abstract or writ large, i also want each of you to think of Cyber Security as a way to protect the individual voters you work with. I know for a fact, ive witnessed it personally and seen it in news story after news story, there is no one in this room and very few people in this Election Community who would not literally go to the ends of the earth to help a voter cast a ballot if they needed that help. We need that same sense of urgency to protect the data of individual voters even if they are not in front of us face to face. We ask voters to give us information in order to help participate in the process. We need to make sure were protecting that information so were protecting not just their votes but the rest of the lives they bring to the table or into the voting booths when they cast their ballots on election day. Thats the challenge and thats a lot of stuff to digest. You will hear about all of that and more today. The good news to me is that all of those very difficult tasks are in absolutely the right hands. Im fond of saying and again anyone who has ever heard me speak probably knows that i say that other than friends and family, my favorite people in the world are Election Officials. You do a job that is poorly defined, that has thousands of different requirements, you function as what i call grenade catchers of american democracy. Its your job to handle the difficult questions on election day and i am impressed time and time again even though ive seen it for 20plus years in how capable, enthusiastically and cheerfully all of you take on that challenge. With shifting politics, with shifting laws, with tight budgets, with this need to protect Election Security and voters across the country, i can think of no group of people in better hands i can think of no people in whose hands that task is better put than Election Officials. Im also, again, ill return to where i started, i think were in good hands with the Election Assistance Commission. When i teach my class at the university of minnesota, i talk about how the eac has given a lot of responsibility for elections by the help america vote act, but not a whole lot of authority. In many ways congress got the agency that it wanted and the agency that it designed, but i think even with that very challenging an limited mandate the eac plays a crucial role in bringing the Election Community together, sharing information at events like this, being in many ways your voice and ear in washington, d. C. , with the federal government. The challenges before us are vast. I know all of you are capable of doing it, but i think youre really in good hands with the Election Assistance Commission here in washington, d. C. With that, i will say that i am looking forward to today. Its always interesting to hear what folks have going on. I know i will have my notepad out when we talk about Cyber Security because im still figuring out where in that bowl of alphabet soup i need to put my spoon, but it should be a great day. I was really honored to be invited to be here and cant wait to hear what all of you have to say. Heres to a successful 2018. [ applause ] the u. S. Election Assistance Commission summit continues focusing on a range of election system issues. This hourlong portion included a Panel Discussion on election efficiency and integrity with nevadas secretary of state, the registrar of voters from san bernardino, california, and m. I. T. Science professor charles stewar i want to say thank you to chairman masterson for getting us kicked off here and to doug for the great remarks. As commissioner masterson mentioned the panel that we have here is called election efficiency and