Center for American Progress Releases Report on Election Security ... back >
Feb. 12, 2018 - The Center for American Progress held a discussion on election security and released a report on "Election Security in All 50 States: Defending America's Elections."   The report notes that, "All states have taken steps—of one kind or another—to protect  their elections from outside influence or system failure that undermines the security of our elections."  However, the report, which gave five states a grade of "F," concludes, "Still, there is much room for improvement.  Most importantly, all states should operate on a paper-based voting system.  In addition, after every election states must carry out robust post-election audits which provide strong evidence that election outcomes are correct.  (Above) Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress, speaks during the discussion
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) has been a leader on election security in the Senate, co-authoring several pieces of legislation.  Most notably the Secure Elections Act, introduced in Dec. 2017 by a bipartisan group of Senators, would establish a $386 million grant program for states to improve election security and infrastructure.  Klobuchar pointed out that the Nov. 6, 2018 midterm elections are 266 days away and said it is time to put politics aside.
Jeh Johnson, who served as Secretary of Homeland Security for the final three-plus years of the Obama Administration, reviewed some of the steps DHS had taken.  For example he recalled that on Oct. 7, 2016 DHS and Office of the Director of National Intelligence had issued a statement on Russian interference that "didn't get the attention frankly that it should have," in part because other news such as the "Access Hollywood" tape story broke the same day.  Johnson also discussed the designation of election infrastructure as a critical infrastructure subsector which met with resistance from secretaries of state when first raised in Aug. 2016 but which the Department went ahead with in Jan. 2017.  "Not enough people on both sides of the aisle regard this as a director threat to our democracy," Johnson stated.
Winnie Stachelberg, vice president for external affairs at CAP, moderated panel with (l-r) Jamil N. Jaffer, founder of the National Security Institute and an adjunct law professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University; Colorado elections director Judd Choate; and former Virginia commissioner for elections Edgardo Cortes.

As an example of how even such an issue as election security has been caught up in the partisan atmosphere in Washington, DC, the conservative Washington Times account of the CAP report ran under the headline, "Group with ties to Obama, Clinton calls to restrict overseas U.S. military voting: Report recommends banning fax, email balloting to improve cybersecurity (>)."

Election Integrity
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