Week in revenue. Well be leaving this Washington Journal Program to go live now to a hearing on Election Security. You can watch the remanldinder this program on cspan. Org. This hearing comes after we laid to rest a giant in Voting Rights. You must use it because it is not guaranteed. You can lose it. We must vigorously defend our right to vote, our access to the ballot box and the integrity of our election. In less than 90 days americans across the country will participate in an election unlike any other in our history. The covid19 pandemic is forcing state and local Election Officials to rapidly expand vote by mail, early voting and other crowd reducing election policies so no voter has to choose between their democratic rights and their health. As states scramble to administer safe primary elections seemingly administrative decisions related to the number and location of polling sites had substantive impacts on peoples right to vote. Long lines in predominantly black and brown neighborhoods raised the stress levels in communities disproportionately impacted by covid19 and Police Violence that underscored that existence of systemic racism as an injustice that we must still overcome. And we have a president who has repeatedly tried to manipulate a news cycle going so far as to falsely suggest he can move an election date and more insidiously making baseless claims about the security of vote by mail. This behavior is in service to his own narcissistic political ends, softens the turf for dangerous foreign influence campaigns and puts americans who want to exercise the franchise at risk. For the record, the president does not have the power to move the date of the election from november. Moreover, last friday the Cyber SecurityInfrastructure Security Agency released a Risk Assessment of vote by mail. While there are risks associated with mailin voting just as with any other method of voting those risks can be mitigated. Further, i am not aware of any intelligence assessment indicating that foreign actors have expressed interest or capability to successfully interfere with vote by mail processes. We must learn the lessons of our recent elections and do better in november. First we must prepare americans for the reality that elections will be administered differently this fall. We must educate voters about vote by mail, its related deadline and how expanded vote by mail might affect the timing of Election Results. We must encourage participation in vote by mail while inoculating the public from disinformation campaigns aimed at undermining confidence in Election Results. Second, we must assure that changes to the usps Standard Service do not affect vote by mail. Third we must ensure Election Officials do not use covid19 as a pretext for making administrative decisions that could disenfranchise voters. Time and time again the impacts of dysfunctional and chaotic Election Administration fallest on black and brown communities. Election officials must be dlibt in their efforts to ensure no community is disenfranchised. Fourth, we must not forget the lessons of 2016. It was around this time in 2016 when russianferr interference campaign targeted election systems in all 50 states. We must continue to improve the security of election infrastructure and Campaign Organizations and improve the public resilience to foreign influence campaigns. Finally, we need to be honest with ourselves about what it will take to administer safe, secure and audible elections this fall. It has been over ten weeks since the house passed the heroes act which would have provided 3. 6 billion in funding to support state and local election issues. Despite urge want requests from state and Election Officials across the country the senate never voted on the heroes act nor did it include any heroes act funding in the legislation it passed last week. I urge my Senate Colleagues to step up and provide state and local electionficials the funding they need to administer safe, secure and auditable elections this november. I look forward to hearing from Witnesses Today the ways to give congress more opportunities to vote this november and to ensure the safety and integrity of the election. I ask unanimous consent ms. Demings of florida and mr. Green of texas be permitted to participate in todays hearing. With that id like to recognize the Ranking Member of the subcommittee for any Opening Statements he may have. I want to echo your sentiments at the outset about john lewis. He truly was a giant in american politics and american leadership, and i considered him a friend. And his legacy will live on long after his passing thats for sure. I want to thank staff for accommodating our schedule today. I have another example how bad 2020 is. Our best friends son is being laid to rest this morning. Its another awful example of this awful year. Election security is something im very concerned about that im working hard to ensure all americans are able to vote securely and have their vote counted. Although we have made significant progress since 2016 Election Security remains a major concern of mine. Secure voting systems and accurate reporting of votes are fundamental to our democracy. Americans should have full confidence in every aspect of our election process. I want to applaud the Cyber Security and Information Agency and its partnerships with state, local, territorial and tribal governments that have resulted in a marked improvement of Election Security over 2016. It provides state and local officials with technical assistance, play books and exercises, shares information on threats and response to cyber incidents. The pandemic has injected new elements of uncertainty that have forced many Election Officials to reinvent the process by which citizens volt. These changes will keep citizens and coworkers safe while main taping citizens faith in the process. In march congress provided 400 million in new help america vote act funds for states to prepare for and conduct the 2020 election during the pandemic. Aided by this infusion of funding state, local Election Officials adjusted to huge increases of voting by mail. A key component of this strategy is countering the opportunity for adversaries to spread disinformation on remote voting procedures and changes in polling locations. It has assisted state and local officials with methods to drive vote toorz reliable sources of information and how to communicate changes to election procedures, polling locations and times. Election security for 20 has also improved as a result of the growing participation in the election act. Its provided thousands of Election Officers with the cyber resources they need to maintain the reliability of their election infrastructure including best practices, tools, training and perhaps most Important Information sharing and analysis. However, many Election Officers dont have the i. T. Knowledge or resources necessary to take advantage of this information. Some of them feel deluged with information they simply cannot sift through. These local Election Offices are not equipped to handle these Cyber Threats to their election infrastructure alone. This is why i introduced my bill. My bill enables a state to hire a security expert familiar with the unique systems. It assures those agents are able to establish assistance. State Election Officials arent forced to compete with other state priorities. Election security has a history of bipartisan cooperation assuring that our election process is uncompromised must remain a top priority for both sides of the aisle. Together i look forward to toipitoi continuing to work toward a goal and i look forward to hearing their ideas how we can further improve the security of our election systems. I yield back. The gentleman from new york yields back. Well all be saying prayers to you as you attend the funeral, and we thank you for your attendance. Say a lot of prayers. Ive got to deliver the youeul and its going to be a tough one. I ask unanimous consent to waive Committee Rule 882 under the covered period designated by the speaker under House Resolution 965. Without objection so ordered. The chair now recognizes the chairman of the full committee, the gentleman from mississippi, mr. Thompson for an opening statement. Maybe we dont. Do we have mr. Thompson here . We will go onto the Ranking Member of the full committee and then well come back to the chairman. So now the chair recognizes the Ranking Member of the full committee, the gentleman from alabama, mr. Rogers, for opening statement. And mr. Rogers is not here. So lets do this. Lets go straight to our amazing witnesses. So i will now welcome our panel of witnesses. First i would like to welcome david levene, an elections integrity fellow. Mr. Levene previously served in a range of positions administering and observing elections and advocating for election reform including as the idaho elections director and as the director of elections for the city of richmond, virginia. Next, the director of voting and elections and common cause. She brings more than a decade of professional experience in Public Interest law and Public Policy campaigns expanding ballot access, reducing barriers to participation and combating voter intimidation among historically disenfranchised communities. Next well hear from the ceo for the National Vote at Home Institute and coalition. She is the former director of elections for denver of colorado and serves on the National Election task force on election crises. I look forward to hearing her unique perspective on that topic. Finally, we have mr. John gilligan, the president and ceo of the center for Internet Security or cis. Together with infrastructure, information sharing and Analysis Center it provides many resources to support the Cyber Security needs of the election community. I appreciate you all joining us today. Without objection the witness full statements will be inserted for the record, and ill ask each witness to summarize his or her statement for five minutes beginning with mr. Levene. Chairman richmond, Ranking Member and members of the subcommittee on Cyber Security, infrastructure protection, innovation, good morning and thank you for the opportunity to testify today on protecting the integrity of the 2020 elections during the covid19 pandemic. Im the Election Integrity fellow, a bipartisan Transatlantic Initiative housed within the marshal fund of the United States. The 2020 primary election season has been unique with a global pandemic, nationwide protests and a global threat of ongoing interference. State a local Election Officials with help from their partners must continually evaluate their infrastructure to ensure its as secure as possible. Testing, auditing existing systems is essential. At a recent meeting of secretaries of state Matt Masterson an advisor with Homeland Security told officials with testing of state and local election systems found a number of concerning vulnerabilities. These included one sharing passwords and other credentials and using default passwords commonly known to outsiders and, two, continuing to fall for phishing attacks that allowed hackers to install malware and ransomware. The bad news is that many local Election Offices are unable to make these fixes quickly because they lack the necessary resources or i. T. Support. The coronavirus has exacerbated the problem. As the election fruinfrastructu is modified to account for the coronavirus or other intervening events security measures must be part of the design and not introduced after the fact. The washington, d. C. Board of elections inundated with complaints from voters who did not receive absentee ballots from the mail decided as a last resort to allow them to submit their ballots by email so their votes could be cast and counted. It put Election Results at risk because theres no way either for those voters to verify that their votes were recorded accurately or to ensure those votes were not altered in transmission by bad actors. And even if theres no actual interference with email ballots allowing them provides fodder to foreign adversaries who could use such actions to sow doubt and confusion about the legitimacy of our elections. We need to ensure our elections are run as smoothly as possible so mis and disinformation is less effective. Regardless of how secure our elections are experts and officials are concerned that some voters could dismiss novembers results as invalid or rig because of mis or disinformation. Voters could argue, for example, the much longer than usual time required to count an anticipated surge in mailin ballots is direct evidence of nefarious conduct. We must seek to flood the Information Space with credible consistent election information so that voters are immunized against falsehoods. This will admittedly be challenging but it is doable particularly if federal authorities can provide state and local Election Officials additional funding to publicize and explain changes to their election processes. It is essential that also partisan politics be kept out of Election Administration to build confidence and integrity in the election process, and this should happen long before election day. For example, kentucky had a relatively smooth election in part due to a bipartisan agreement between a democratic governor and a republican secretary of state. It took a number of joint steps to help the state prepare for its primary including allowing for the unprecedented expansion o of absentee voting. And have sufficient resources to plan for reasonably foreseeable contingencies. Offering robust voting by mail, early voting and election day options to minimize confusion and risk are optimal, but many jurisdictions dont currently have the resources and or personnel to offer all these approaches. Additional resources from federal authorities would help enormously with administering and securing the election, but time is of the essence. The late congressman john lewis once said your vote is precious, almost sacred. It is the most powerful nonviolent tool we have to create a more perfect union. I urge congress to do Everything Possible to ensure every person who wants to exercise the right to vote can do so. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Levene. We now recognize ms. Albert to summarize her statement for five minutes. Good morning. Thank you for inviting me to testify today. Thank you to all members of the subcommittee for holding this critically important hearing. My name is Sylvia Albert and im the director of voting elections, a national nonpartisan Watchdog Organization with 1. 2 million supporters and more than 25 state chapters. For more than 50 years common cause has been living power accountable and grass roots organizing. Common cause fights to get big money out of politics and foster an open, free media to make government more responsive to the people. The covid19 pandemic was an unprecedented challenge for our democracy. We have long known our decentralized voting systems have vastly different voting experiences depending on where they live. While the rules vary there is one thing that is uniform, there is no such thing as a perfect election. Longstanding disparities including long lines, the ballot rejection rates particularly of black and brown communities are now exacerbated by the covid19 pandemic. The chasm of those with access is growing larger. Voters of color are on the losing end. Without proper funding the problems are going to be just the tip of the iceberg. The 2020 primary season is a preview of the problems to come. Theres no single solution to ensure a safe and secure election. However by understanding we can work to eliminate the barriers in the voter spasz i want to highlight some of these issues in nearly every state that voted since the pandemic we saw an increase of mail in ballots. For many states the infrastructure the process, request and produce ballots could not handle the huge increase. Expecting voe expecting voters to vote by mail officials over consolidated the location. Voters were forced to vote in person at a small number of polling locations that were therefore overrun. For example, pennsylvanias two most populous counties shifted for more than 120 polling places to fewer than 500 resulting in confusion and long lines. In addition the polling places chosen in addition voting machine failures led to disenfranchisement. Problems were