Election Security: Protecting the Foundation of the Democracy (S1E11)

Part 3: The Voter Experience

This is the third of a three-part series that looks at election security from many perspectives. In this episode, we have a state official, an election association leader, an FBI analyst, a subject matter expert from a federal election association, and a well-known cybersecurity expert talk about the presidential election of 2020.

Residents of the State of Virginia will be reassured when they listen to remarks by Dan Persico. One focus he has for the voting experience is uniformity. He wants to make sure voting is safe and consistent in all 133 localities in the state. He agrees with many election experts that this election will be about misinformation and disinformation.

Few know that the security conference DEFCON had a voting machine hacking village. Maurice Turner was motivated to work in the U.S. Election Assistance Commission after his experience there. From his point of view, voting officials across the country are responding appropriately to the unique challenges of this election.

John Loveless is the hacker in the group. He expands the discussion by talking about possible disruptions in the power grid or dangers in uploading voting data. John’s opinions are contrasted to the insight from an FBI Intelligence analyst.

From the perspective of the FBI, foreign actors have been attempting to disrupt elections in the United States for an exceptionally long time. His agency is doing everything they can to combat disruption campaigns.

This episode completes a magnificent three-part series on election security. Each episode brought together nationally known experts from academia, non-profits, commercial organizations, and the federal government to give the listener a full orb understanding of election security for 2020.

To view this webinar: Election Security: Protecting the Foundation of Democracy – The Voter Experience.

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Featured Speakers:

• Dan Persico, Chief Information Officer, Virginia Department of Elections
• Maurice Turner, Senior Advisor to the Executive Director, U.S. Election Assistance Commission
• David Levine, Election Integrity Fellow, Alliance for Securing Democracy
• Steve Feldman, Intelligence Analyst, FBI & Foreign Influence Task Force
• Mark Loveless, Senior Security Researcher, GitLab