National: DHS to require election security spending in homeland security grants | Benjamin Freed/StateScoop
States that receive funding this year from the Department of Homeland Security’s main grant programming will be required to spend at least 3% of their awards on safeguarding elections, according to documents published Monday. A notice of funding opportunity for the fiscal 2023 iteration of the Homeland Security Grant Program stipulates that states and localities must now commit at least that much toward a slew of election-security concerns, including cybersecurity, physical protections for voting equipment and polling locations and prevention of harassment and threats against election workers. Cybersecurity continues to be a primary area of concern for many statewide and local election officials and federal cybersecurity authorities. At a recent gathering of the National Association of Secretaries of State, Cynthia Kaiser, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division, said that while last year’s election cycle was again free of any compromise by foreign malicious actors, officials remain wary of potential threats, particularly “more significant Chinese cyber activity against your states in the coming year.” And as hacking worries have lingered, election administrators have also in recent years grappled with a rise of insider threats — often motivated by baseless conspiracy theories about voting technology — and risks of physical violence and targeted harassment.
Full Article: DHS to require election security spending in homeland security grants | StateScoop