Category Archives: election assistance commission

Election Assistance Commission pleads for more money in Senate hearing

Posted on by

The Election Assistance Commission is straining to secure elections in advance of the 2020 cycle with its current level of funding, the organization’s leadership told lawmakers Wednesday during a hearing on Capitol Hill. EAC chairwoman Christy McCormick said during a Senate Rules Committee hearing on election security that the commission has seen its budget halved from where it was in 2010, despite the fact that its responsibilities have greatly increased since the 2016 election. “That’s unbelievable,” Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said of the cuts. “That’s like cutting the budget of the fire department in the middle of a five alarm fire. We’ve never had such a serious attack on our political systems that we’ve had in the last three years and your budget is 50 percent what it was.” All four EAC commissioners who testified Wednesday agreed that information sharing with local election officials needs to improve in advance of the 2020 elections. Two […]

The post Election Assistance Commission pleads for more money in Senate hearing appeared first on CyberScoop.

Continue reading Election Assistance Commission pleads for more money in Senate hearing→

Election commission names new lead for testing and certifying voting systems

Posted on by

The federal Election Assistance Commission has appointed Jerome Lovato, a former Colorado state election official, as head of the commission’s program for testing and certifying voting systems, according to a commission email obtained by CyberScoop. Lovato replaces Ryan Macias, who was filling the role in an acting capacity and will step down this month. The crucial EAC program works with the country’s top voting equipment vendors to certify and decertify voting system hardware and software. Lovato’s appointment, which was first reported by Politico, comes as the commission prepares to help secure the 2020 election, a vote that U.S. officials have warned will be targeted by foreign adversaries. Senators are expected to raise those issues next week at an EAC oversight hearing next week. Some lawmakers have pushed for an increase in EAC funding to hire more tech and cybersecurity experts. Whether or not that money comes, the commission intends on hiring more technical personnel, […]

The post Election commission names new lead for testing and certifying voting systems appeared first on CyberScoop.

Continue reading Election commission names new lead for testing and certifying voting systems→

Election Assistance Commission loses key tech expert ahead of 2020

Posted on by

The top official responsible for certifying voting systems at the federal Election Assistance Commission is stepping down, multiple sources confirmed to CyberScoop. The departure of Ryan Macias, the EAC’s acting director of testing and certification, comes as the commission prepares for the 2020 election and continues to mull an important update to voting system security guidelines – a process that Macias has overseen. The commission’s Voluntary Voting System Guidelines are a key set of principles that technical experts can use to evaluate the security of their systems. In February, the commission released the proposed new guidelines, known as VVSG 2.0 for public comment. The result could be the most thorough update to the guidelines since 2005. Macias also manages EAC’s program that works with the country’s top voting equipment vendors to certify and decertify voting system hardware and software, and accredits labs for testing equipment. Multiple people familiar with the matter told CyberScoop that Macias […]

The post Election Assistance Commission loses key tech expert ahead of 2020 appeared first on CyberScoop.

Continue reading Election Assistance Commission loses key tech expert ahead of 2020→

Here are the big election security measures in the House Democrats’ massive new bill

Posted on by

A giant bill House Democrats proposed on Friday includes a number of measures aimed at improving election security and voter confidence. The measures in H.R. 1 draw on provisions from several bills that were proposed but failed since the 2016 election, which experts and officials concluded was targeted by a Russian-led influence operation. Key features include a requirement that federal elections be conducted with paper ballots that can be counted by hand or optical scanners, new grants that states and municipalities can use to improve and upgrade equipment, an incident reporting requirement for election system vendors and a number of other measures meant to keep election systems’ security up-to-date. Election security experts have criticized paperless voting machines because of their vulnerability to tampering with little recourse, since they produce no auditable paper trail of each vote. Such machines were used to some extent in more than a dozen states in […]

The post Here are the big election security measures in the House Democrats’ massive new bill appeared first on CyberScoop.

Continue reading Here are the big election security measures in the House Democrats’ massive new bill→

Majority of election security grants going toward cybersecurity, equipment upgrades

Posted on by

About a third of federal funding meant to improve election technology will be spent on cybersecurity-related improvements, while another third will be used to upgrade old equipment, according to plans released Tuesday by states and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. In March, Congress appropriated $380 million for states to use for upgrades to election infrastructure, under the Help America Vote Act. It’s the first time the federal distributes HAVA funding since 2010. “The 380 [million] is something new in terms of additional funding, but it’s in that same realm of ensuring that our voting process remain secure and that vote of confidence remains high,” Tom Hicks, chairman of the EAC, told CyberScoop. While states have a lot of leeway in how to spend the money, Congress and the EAC emphasized the need for boosting election security, given heightened concern over foreign meddling. “I would say it’s a magnitudes more on […]

The post Majority of election security grants going toward cybersecurity, equipment upgrades appeared first on Cyberscoop.

Continue reading Majority of election security grants going toward cybersecurity, equipment upgrades→

Election exercise pairs states with intelligence community in unprecedented opportunity

Posted on by

Forty-four states took part in an unprecedented election-security exercise last week that offered a crucial opportunity for electoral officials to interact with federal agencies with some of the most vaunted cyber capabilities in the government. This elaborate a security exercise simply didn’t happen in 2016: before the Russian government’s sweeping intervention in the U.S. election, it was hard to imagine the need for local and state officials to drill with the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command. But with 2016 fresh in their minds, those officials have warmed to the idea. “The biggest obstacle that we had in 2016 was communication, and so I think a lot of those barriers have been torn down and states are more willing to hear from the federal government,” Election Assistance Commission Commissioner Thomas Hicks told CyberScoop. “[O]ne of the most valuable parts” of the drill, Hicks added, was that it drove home for state […]

The post Election exercise pairs states with intelligence community in unprecedented opportunity appeared first on Cyberscoop.

Continue reading Election exercise pairs states with intelligence community in unprecedented opportunity→

DHS holds election security exercise with states to prep for midterms

Posted on by

With less than three months until the midterm elections, the Department of Homeland Security held a three-day exercise this week that allowed state and local officials to practice warding off an array of cyberthreats, from spear-phishing campaigns to distributed denial of service attacks. The drills, which featured officials from 44 states, the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command, among other federal agencies, “explored potential impacts to voter confidence, voting operations, and the integrity of elections,” according to a DHS statement. The Election Assistance Commission, the federal agency charged with distributing $380 million in election-security funding to states, also took part. DHS said private vendors participated in the exercise, but did not name them. The exercise covered several scenarios, according to DHS: spear phishing against election officials; social media manipulation related to political candidates; “disruption” of voter registration IT systems; distributed denial-of-service attacks and “web defacements” affecting board of election […]

The post DHS holds election security exercise with states to prep for midterms appeared first on Cyberscoop.

Continue reading DHS holds election security exercise with states to prep for midterms→

Wyden asks election commission to issue fresh cybersecurity guidance

Posted on by

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has asked the Election Assistance Commission to issue updated cybersecurity guidance to states to protect their voting infrastructure ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. Congress allotted $380 million to states through a March spending bill to help secure their voting systems, a move that analysts welcomed as necessary, but insufficient to replace paperless voting machines that could fall prey to digital manipulation. “Absent guidance from the EAC, some states may opt to spend these new funds on insecure voting technology,” Wyden wrote in a letter obtained by CyberScoop. “Election security experts have worked tirelessly to understand and articulate the vulnerabilities certain types of machines can introduce into elections,” Wyden wrote, adding that new EAC guidance must incorporate those findings. The senator also wants the EAC to answer a series of questions by July 15, including whether the commission has any fulltime cybersecurity experts on staff and if it […]

The post Wyden asks election commission to issue fresh cybersecurity guidance appeared first on Cyberscoop.

Continue reading Wyden asks election commission to issue fresh cybersecurity guidance→

Senate report on Russian hacking highlights threats to election tech vendors

Posted on by

Lawmakers are concerned about a major blind spot in the government’s ongoing effort to protect U.S. elections from hackers. Agencies like the Homeland Security Department have little insight into the cybersecurity practices of election technology vendors. This lack of visibility opens the door to supply chain attacks, according to the Senate Intelligence Committee, which could be otherwise potentially detected or stopped by government cybersecurity experts. The Senate committee’s first installment of a larger report on Russian targeting of the 2016 presidential election was released late Tuesday night. It focuses on assessing the federal government’s response to security threats and provides recommendations for future elections. Most of the infrastructure used to process votes today is comprised of equipment and software sold by private vendors. Government agencies are not allowed to enter and defend private computer networks unless they’re given direct consent, which in turn limits the defensive support options immediately available to the […]

The post Senate report on Russian hacking highlights threats to election tech vendors appeared first on Cyberscoop.

Continue reading Senate report on Russian hacking highlights threats to election tech vendors→

First-of-its-kind forum on election security gathers state and local officials with feds

Posted on by

A top U.S. election official says that the allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election came with a silver lining: At least we’re now focusing on election security. Christy McCormick, a member of the Election Assistance Commission, told a crowd of state and local election officials from across the country on Wednesday that the events of 2016 jump-started a focus on election security that was not as prominent before. “I know that election officials have always focused on these problems to some degree. Not so laserly focused on election security but I think this has brought this to the forefront for us in the last couple of years. So if there’s a good consequence to what happened, that is one of them,” McCormick said Wednesday at a public forum the EAC hosted in Miami to allow the state and local officials to discuss their election security plans ahead of upcoming […]

The post First-of-its-kind forum on election security gathers state and local officials with feds appeared first on Cyberscoop.

Continue reading First-of-its-kind forum on election security gathers state and local officials with feds→