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measures ahead of the 2020 presiden- tial election.
“The concerns are valid, but there are protections in place,” said Nimit Sawhney, co-founder and CEO of Voatz. “We are giving citizens the confidence that their absentee ballots made it and were counted without compromising their privacy.”
But Audrey Malagon, an associate professor of mathematics at Virginia Wesleyan University, isn’t convinced. She supports the idea of making vot- ing easier for service members, but she believes that traditional absentee ballots are safer.
During the last legislative session in Richmond, Malagon, working as an adviser for Verified Voting, successfully advocated against a measure that would have opened overseas military voting to a blockchain-based system. Instead, she
pushed officials to extend the deadline for mailing absentee ballots for those stationed abroad.
“The thing you lose when you vote over the internet is privacy,” she said. “Once that vote is sent off, there’s no way for the voter to know that when it gets to the other end it’s been counted and tabulated the way they intended, unless you’re going to compromise that anonymity.”
When Voatz sends an email confirm- ing how a person voted, that voter’s pri- vacy is stripped, Malagon said. And while there is a paper record of their vote, vot- ers cannot see the final document elec- tion administrators print and count.
Blockchain technology in elec- tions “would do little to address the major security requirements of vot- ing,” according to a National Acad- emies of Sciences, Engineering and
Medicine report last year. Allowing internet access in the voting process is too risky, the report argues, at least until there are “substantial scientific advances.”
But Tusk Philanthropies’ Nix thinks states can achieve better accessibility and security through apps like Voatz, despite concerns from security experts.
“What we’re doing is more secure than what’s in practice,” she said. “And every time you make it easier to vote, that’s a good thing. Empowering more people to participate is very much a step in the right direction.”
Voatz plans to continue expanding its app to other jurisdictions in the coming months. n
This article was first posted on State- line, an initiative of the Pew Chari- table Trusts.
ODNI creates new position dedicated to election security
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is creating a new position
that will be dedicated to overseeing and coordinating election security efforts across the broader intelligence community.
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats appointed Shelby Pierson, a veteran intelligence professional, to be the first intelligence community election threats executive.
“In order to build on our successful approach to the 2018 elections, the IC must properly align its resources to bring the strongest level of support to this critical issue,” Coats said in a statement. “There is no one more qualified to serve as the very first election threats executive than Shelby Pierson.”
According to the statement, Pierson served as crisis manager for election security during the 2018 election and has over 20 years of service in the IC. Last year, as ODNI’s national intelligence manager for Russia, Europe and Eurasia, she was one of seven executive branch representatives who gave a classified
briefing to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on election security threats leading up to the 2018 midterms.
ODNI also announced the establishment of a new Election Executive and Leadership Board to coordinate election security efforts. It will be led by Pierson and staffed with representatives from the intelligence community and other federal agencies. Coats ordered all relevant intelligence agencies to designate a senior executive to lead the effort.
The announcement comes after a 2018 midterm election cycle that seemingly faced a lower volume of threats to election infrastructure, though Coats
and other leaders warned in October 2018 that Russia, China, Iran and other foreign actors were conducting ongoing influence campaigns to undermine confidence in U.S. institutions and possibly alter voter perceptions. Several months after the election, many of those same agencies followed up to say
there was no evidence that those efforts had a material impact on the integrity or security of election or campaign infrastructure during the cycle.
The Trump administration issued an executive order last year establishing
a multistep interagency process to investigate whether foreign governments were involved in interference or influence efforts following an election. If the intelligence community, along with the Department of Homeland Security and others, were to uncover evidence of
such efforts, it would trigger automatic sanctions on the offending groups and countries identified.
Although officials are calling 2018
a success, they have also noted that non-presidential elections do not offer the same potential gains for foreign adversaries that a presidential election does, and FBI Director Christopher Wray and others have warned that 2018 was likely just a dress rehearsal for a more active 2020 cycle.
— Derek B. Johnson
August 2019 FCW.COM 21