Verified Voting Blog: Verified Voting Testimony Before the House Administration Committee hearing on “Election Security"

Download the Written Testimony (pdf)
Chair Lofgren, Ranking Member Davis and members of the Committee, thank you for the invitation to submit testimony to the Committee on House Administration hearing on “Election Security.” We urge the Committee to move expeditiously to support state and local jurisdictions in strengthening their election systems and provide upfront and sustained investment in election infrastructure and security. Since 2016, it is clear that the threat to our democratic institution of voting is not theoretical, but real and persistent. We must, as a nation, adopt the clear solutions that will allow us to defuse the destructive narrative of election hacking that undermines the very fabric of our democracy.
The Scope of the Problems with Election Security and Current Election Infrastructure
Election administration depends on computers at multiple points in the election process. Equipment for voting is but one part of a broad array of election technology infrastructure that supports the conduct of elections today. Some of that technology infrastructure includes voter registration databases, internet facing applications such as online voter registration and polling place lookup, network connections between state government and local jurisdictions, the computers that program the voting devices that record and count votes in addition to the voting devices themselves. Some jurisdictions also use electronic poll books to check voters in at polling sites and most states and localities report election night returns via a website.
To the extent that any of these can be compromised or manipulated, can contain errors, or can fail to operate correctly—or at all—this can potentially affect the vote. Election system security requires not only efforts to prevent breaches and malfunctions, but also fail-safes that address breaches and malfunctions that do occur.

Europe: Russia Is Targeting Europe’s Elections. So Are Far-Right Copycats. | The New York Times

Less than two weeks before pivotal elections for the European Parliament, a constellation of websites and social media accounts linked to Russia or far-right groups is spreading disinformation, encouraging discord and amplifying distrust in the centrist parties that have governed for decades. European Union investigators, academics and advocacy groups say the new disinformation efforts share many of the same digital fingerprints or tactics used in previous Russian attacks, including the Kremlin’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. Fringe political commentary sites in Italy, for instance, bear the same electronic signatures as pro-Kremlin websites, while a pair of German political groups share servers used by the Russian hackers who attacked the Democratic National Committee. The activity offers fresh evidence that despite indictments, expulsions and recriminations, Russia remains undeterred in its campaign to widen political divisions and weaken Western institutions. Despite online policing efforts by American technology companies, it remains far easier to spread false information than to stop it. Russia remains a driving force, but researchers also discovered numerous copycats, particularly on the far right. Those groups often echo Kremlin talking points, making it difficult to discern the lines between Russian propaganda, far-right disinformation and genuine political debate.

Ohio: Lawmakers look into strengthening state's election, cybersecurity efforts | The Cleveland American

With election security frequently in the news, the Ohio House Transportation and Public Safety Committee took the opportunity recently to discuss a cybersecurity bill. The panel convened a hearing on Senate Bill 52, which deals with bolstering the state’s cybersecurity. A major part of the initiative is to protect the state’s elections from outside interference or tampering. Secretary of State Frank LaRose said it’s an important issue, especially given that Ohio’s likely to be a swing state in next year’s presidential election. “The eyes of the world will be on Ohio in 2020, and we will rise to that occasion,” he said. The Secretary of State told the committee that, if passed, the measure gives Ohio a chance to become a national leader in cybersecurity. It received unanimous support in the Senate.

National: Microsoft offers software tools to secure elections | Associated Press

Microsoft has announced an ambitious effort to make voting secure, verifiable and subject to reliable audits by registering ballots in encrypted form so they can be accurately and independently tracked long after they are cast. Two of the three top U.S elections vendors have expressed interest in potentially incorporating the open-source software into their voting systems. The software is being developed with Galois, an Oregon-based company separately creating a secure voting system prototype under contract with the Pentagon’s advanced research agency, DARPA. Dubbed “ElectionGuard,” it will be available this summer, Microsoft says, with early prototypes ready to pilot for next year’s U.S. general elections. CEO Satya Nadella announced the initiative Monday at a developer’s conference in Seattle, saying the software development kit would help “modernize all of the election infrastructure everywhere in the world.” Three little-known U.S. companies control about 90 percent of the market for election equipment, but have long faced criticism for poor security, antiquated technology and insufficient transparency around their proprietary, black-box voting systems. Open-source software is inherently more secure because the underlying code is easily scrutinized by outside experts but has been shunned by the dominant vendors whose customers — the nation’s 10,000 election jurisdictions — are mostly strapped for cash. None offered bids when Travis County, Texas, home to Austin, sought to build a system with the “end-to-end” verification attributes that ElectionGuard promises to deliver. Two of the leading vendors, Election Systems & Software of Omaha, Nebraska, and Hart InterCivic of Austin, Texas, both expressed interest in partnering with Microsoft for ElectionGuard. A spokeswoman for a third vendor, Dominion Voting Systems of Denver, said the company looks forward to “learning more” about the initiative.

National: Democrats focus on election security, voting rights | McClatchy

Democratic leaders are launching a more aggressive push this month that could widen their probe of possible voter suppression into states other than those now under scrutiny, seeking to make it particularly less difficult for minority voters, who tend to vote Democratic, to go to the polls. House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings told McClatchy he wants to “make sure we spend significant effort and time, perhaps even looking at even more states and seeing what they’re doing and shining a light on what they may be doing illegally or improperly to stop or hinder people from voting and having those votes counted.” Cummings was already planning to look at possible voter suppression in North Carolina, Georgia, Texas and Kansas. The Maryland Democrat did not name additional states. At the same time, congressional Democrats are stepping up pressure on Republicans to address election security lapses to prevent a repeat of Russian meddling in the 2016 election. The Russian interference, combined with allegations of voter suppression, erode confidence in the electoral system, Democrats argue, and if both are not addressed, voters could be discouraged from participating in the 2020 election. “This is my worry, that we have done very little now to correct the threat of Russian interference with our electoral system,” Cummings said, “which means that it might be that the only way this whole situation that we’re in is corrected is through the ballot, with people voting.”

National: U.S. Cyber Command Bolsters Allied Defenses to Impose Cost on Moscow | The New York Times

American officials are pushing ahead on efforts with allied nations to counter Russia’s interference in democratic elections and other malign activities, military cybercommanders said on Tuesday, an effort intended to allow the United States to better observe and counter Moscow’s newest cyberweapons. American officials deployed last year to Ukraine, Macedonia and Montenegro, and United States Cyber Command officials said that their missions included defending elections and uncovering information about Russia’s newest abilities. Cyber Command will continue some of those partnerships and expand its work to other countries under attack from Russia, officials said Tuesday. The deployments, officials said, are meant to impose costs on Moscow, to make Russia’s attempts to mount online operations in Europe and elsewhere more difficult and to potentially bog down Moscow’s operatives and degrade their ability to interfere in American elections. “We recognize and understand the importance of being in constant contact with the enemy in this space, especially below the level of armed conflict, so we can defend ourselves and we can impose costs,” Maj. Gen. Charles L. Moore, the director of operations for Cyber Command, said Tuesday. “That is it in a nutshell.” With new authorities from the White House, as well as congressional legislation that declared online operations a traditional military activity, Cyber Command stepped up its election defenses last year, allowing commanders to develop a strategy to engage American adversaries.

National: Can open source help safeguard elections? | FCW

Lawmakers and policy experts are demonstrating increased interest in open source technology as a means to solving longstanding challenges and road blocks around election security. State and local governments rely on proprietary software and hardware from a small handful of private vendors to power their voting machines, voter registration systems and other technologies. Those vendors have historically been reluctant or unwilling to allow third-party audits of their products, and when outside researchers have gotten their hands on voting machines or probed commonly used software like voter registration systems, they've found extensive and worrying cybersecurity vulnerabilities in nearly every model. That reluctance has led to a number of projects that have sprouted up over the past year from organizations aiming to disrupt the status quo. One such organization, Voting Works, was created last year in partnership with the non-profit Center for Democracy and Technology and seeks to build "secure, usable, affordable and open-source voting machines" that will help to restore trust in the modern election system.

National: Limiting the cyber threat to elections infrastructure | GCN

Voter confidence in the integrity of elections is critical to a vibrant democracy. Recent cyberattacks by foreign state actors accompanied by disinformation campaigns aimed at U.S. voters have contributed to an erosion in the public's trust of electoral results. But there’s another set of issues just as concerning: persistent, preventable “seams” or vulnerabilities in election system tools, processes and guidelines. E-voting machines are among the most prominent business technology solutions of the 21st century, yet they remain vulnerable to physical and data tampering and weaknesses in the chain of custody. In a 2012 study, the Argonne National Laboratory's vulnerability assessment team discovered that attackers could exploit the integrity of an e-voting machine chassis with relative ease regardless of tamper-evident seals or locks. Data stored on e-voting machines was not encrypted, leaving it susceptible to interception, modification or deletion by an attacker. In the Argonne study, white-hat hackers used after-market wireless card adapters to intercept and alter communications exchanged between e-voting machines and the elections network infrastructure. The study concluded that successful tampering with just one in three voting machines is enough to change the outcome of an election.

Florida: FBI to meet with Florida delegation to discuss Russian hacking | Politico

The FBI will hold a classified briefing with members of the Florida congressional delegation next week about suspected Russian hacking during the 2016 elections. The FBI is scheduled to meet with House members May 16. The agency will sit down Republican Sen. Rick Scott ahead of the delegation meeting. The FBI briefings were confirmed by three people with knowledge of the meetings who weren’t authorized to discuss them publicly. Special counsel Robert Mueller last month revealed the suspected hacking in a report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. The disclosure jolted Florida officials, who had previously insisted the Russians had been unsuccessful in their hacking efforts. Republican Sen. Marco Rubio later confirmed the intrusion in an interview with The New York Times. His office has clarified that the Russians had access to a statewide voter registration database, not systems used to tally actual votes. A person with access to the database could have altered or changed voter information. Scott last month asked FBI Director Christopher Wray for any information the agency had to back up Mueller’s conclusion. Reps. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) and Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.), both former national security professionals, last week wrote to Wray and Attorney General William Barr asking for a classified briefing “on the nature and extent of the Russian government’s efforts to interfere with the 2016 election in our state.”

New Jersey: On Eve of Primaries, New Jersey Is at Early Stage of Shoring Up Election Security | NJ Spotlight

New Jersey wasn’t one of the 21 states whose electoral systems were targeted by Russian hackers in 2016, but it has weaknesses at both state and county level. With less a month to go before this year’s primary elections, New Jersey officials are continuing to fortify state and county election infrastructure, including the addition of more new voting machines with a verifiable paper trail, to ensure the integrity of elections. Secretary of State Tahesha Way, who oversees elections, told the budget committees of both houses of the Legislature last week that while New Jersey was not one of the 21 states that Russian hackers targeted or scanned in 2016, the state is taking several steps to prevent any unwanted access to its election systems. Her department has also been working with counties to assess the security of their machines and data. “The soundness of our elections sits at the top of my agenda,” Way told lawmakers, several of whom expressed concern about the safety of the state’s election infrastructure and whether she is getting enough money to fund necessary security upgrades. “The Department of State has been extremely proactive on election security and has become recognized for these election integrity efforts,” Way said. New Jersey received almost $9.8 million in federal funds through the Help America Vote Act, and is matching that with about $500,000, to spend over five years updating and enhancing the security of voting machines and systems. DOS has some leeway in deciding how to spend the money and has outlined how it expects to do so.

Australia: Technology problems are not going to be sorted out by more Kool-Aid | ZDNet

An Australian election is on again. The triennial ritual where the electorate makes a choice of which parliamentarian to elect -- who will then decide what sort of greying, white male party apparatchik becomes the Prime Minister. With the dumping of racist and homophobic candidates being a daily occurrence, the campaign is plumbing the depths expected upon its announcement. However, on the plus side, Russian trolls and foreign actors have not stoked or created the scandals that are occurring -- this is pure, unabashed, organic, embarrassing Australian politics. For the folks able to take their eyes off the sideshow, a common refrain from the technically minded has been the lack of policy directed towards them. But this week, like an ancient Greek god that hasn't had a good laugh in a while, the Labor party decided to announce it would erect a AU$3 million Blockchain Academy in Perth if it is elected. This was followed in short order by AU$2 million being put towards a Broadmeadows cyber training centre, adding to the AU$3 million National Centre of Artificial Intelligence Excellence announced last month. On the opposing side, Morrison government said last month it would spend AU$156 million to build a cyber workforce and fight cybercrime if re-elected.

Editorials: Russia’s attacks on our democratic systems call for diverse countermeasures | Bruce Schneier/The Hill

What do attacks on the integrity of our voting systems, the census and the judiciary all have in common? They’re all intended to reduce our faith in systems necessary for our democracy to function, and they’re also targets of Russian propaganda efforts. To understand how these efforts can effectively undermine a democracy, it helps to think of a government as an information system. In this conceptualization, there are two types of knowledge that governments use to function. The first is what we call common political knowledge, which consists of the political information we all agree on. This includes things such as how the government works, how leaders are elected, and the laws that the courts uphold. This is contrasted with contested political knowledge, which are the things we disagree on: what the correct level of taxation should be, in what ways government should get involved in social issues, and so on. Both are essential in a democracy, because we draw upon our disagreements to solve problems. Different political groups work to advance their own agendas, and the inevitable compromises between those groups advance laws and policies. Uncertainty over who will be in power in the long term incents everyone to keep the whole system running. But for any of this to work, we need the shared knowledge of the rules by which society operates. We all have to agree on the rules for elections, the authority of regulatory agencies, and even what the dominant political parties are and what they stand for. When what previously has been common political knowledge becomes contested political knowledge, democracy itself is in jeopardy.

National: CISA wants more funding for critical infrastructure activities | FCW

The head of the federal government's top civilian cybersecurity agency told two House panels this week that he would prioritize increased technical assistance to critical infrastructure entities if provided with additional funding in the fiscal 2020 budget. Christopher Krebs, director of the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, pointed to the substantial investment Congress has made to CISA's budget for election security operations over the past few years as a model for how the agency would like to deploy additional resources to other critical infrastructure sectors. "Congress has invested in my agency to date, close to $60 million, purely related to election security," Krebs said at an April 30 hearing with the House Homeland Security Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection and Innovation Subcommittee. "Outside of federal networks, I don't think I have another critical infrastructure sector that Congress has invested specifically to that level." CISA provides a variety of services to the 16 critical infrastructure sectors it serves, from sharing of cyber threat intelligence to in-depth vulnerability scans. The agency has also indicated in recent months that it has plans to begin installing technical sensors around critical infrastructure systems to detect malicious activity, similar to the Albert sensors it has deployed around election and voting systems.

National: Election security push stumbles amid White House resistance | Politico

Senate Democrats and Republicans can agree on perhaps just one thing about special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation — that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election. But bipartisan legislation to address foreign intrusions is all but dead amid a distinct lack of enthusiasm from Senate GOP leadership and the Trump White House. At a heated hearing with Attorney General William Barr on Wednesday, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) blasted the White House for blocking the election security bill she co-sponsored with Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) in the previous Congress. And in an interview, Klobuchar put the blame for the impasse squarely on President Donald Trump’s former White House counsel Don McGahn as well as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. “It was Don McGahn,” Klobuchar said Wednesday. “He called Republicans about the bill, didn’t want them to do it. And McConnell also didn’t want the bill to move forward. So it was a double-edged thing.” Klobuchar added that McGahn, who was previously chair of the Federal Election Commission, “had a personal interest in it” and that, with him no longer at the White House, “maybe they can look at it fresh.” McGahn did not respond to a request for comment.

National: Mueller Findings Raise Election Hacking Fears in States | Stateline

Tucked into the 448-page report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller were four paragraphs about major breaches into state and local election systems. Mueller’s description of Russian interference designed to help the Trump campaign was a reminder of how far many state and local officials have come in securing election infrastructure, but also of how stark the threat remains to the nation’s 8,000 election offices. The report even disclosed a previously unknown breach: Russian intelligence agents in November 2016 tried to introduce corrupted files into election offices in several Florida counties. The hackers succeeded in at least one of those counties, the report indicates. It raises questions about election systems’ vulnerability to outside hackers — and why the FBI didn’t tell Florida officials about the attempted strike. Election security experts say malicious foreign actors continue this year to target voter registration databases, Election Day result programs, and election office websites and social media profiles as they did during the last presidential election. “It once again reinforces that this is a legitimate threat,” said Maurice Turner, a senior technologist at the nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington, D.C. “This isn’t just a one-time issue that’s come and gone.” Any interference operations targeting the 2020 presidential election already have begun, Turner said. Phishing emails designed to allow hackers to capture passwords, usernames or personal information through unwitting officials likely have already gone out, he said.

National: Klobuchar finds Attorney General Barr unaware of major election security legislation | Roll Call

Attorney General William Barr said Wednesday that he was not familiar with the Senate’s bipartisan effort to enhance the security of election systems ahead of 2020. Barr had not yet returned to the Department of Justice when, last year, the Senate Rules and Administration Committee abruptly cancelled a markup of a bipartisan bill known as the Secure Elections Act. The legislation crafted by Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford and Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar seeks to require state election officials to conduct audits following elections, as well as to establish paper ballot backup systems. “The White House, just as we were on the verge of getting a markup in the Rules Committee, getting it to the floor where I think we would get the vast majority of senators, the White House made calls to stop this,” Klobuchar said at the hearing, recalling the events of August 2018. Klobuchar then asked Barr for a commitment to work on the legislation. “I will work with you to enhance the security of our election, and I’ll take a look at what you are proposing,” Barr said. “I’m not familiar with it.” Klobuchar responded to Barr by pointing out that the bill is the main bipartisan measure related to election security, noting support of Intelligence Chairman Richard M. Burr, R-N.C., and Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., as well as fellow Judiciary Committee members including Democrat Kamala Harris of California and Chairman Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican.

National: Here’s the one thing Republicans and Democrats could agree on during Barr hearing | The Washington Post

During a contentious and highly partisan hearing with Attorney General William Barr yesterday, senators did manage to find one bipartisan point of agreement: Pushing for improved election and campaign security before 2020. During the more than four-hour Judiciary Committee hearing, both Republicans and Democrats sought Barr’s support for legislation to require paper records for 2020 votes and efforts to harden election infrastructure and to combat digital misinformation. And they urged the Justice Department to help 2020 presidential campaigns ward off foreign interference. “The special counsel’s report is the end of the road when it comes to the question of the Trump administration’s intent,” Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) said. “But it is just the beginning of the conversation on how we counter Russia and other foreign adversaries in their attempts to undermine our Republic.” It seemed to be the only point of political alignment at the hearing during which Democrats savaged Barr for allegedly misrepresenting findings in the report from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and after which numerous Democratic senators called on the attorney general to resign. But it’s far from clear that Congress will be able to pass election security legislation in time for the 2020 contest.

National: 2020 campaigns grappling with how to manage cybersecurity | Associated Press

While candidates were focused on campaigning in 2016, Russians were carrying out a devastating cyber-operation that changed the landscape of American politics, with aftershocks continuing well into Donald Trump’s presidency. And it all started with the click of a tempting email and a typed-in password. Whether presidential campaigns have learned from the cyberattacks is a critical question ahead as the 2020 election approaches. Preventing the attacks won’t be easy or cheap. “If you are the Pentagon or the NSA, you have the most skilled adversaries in the world trying to get in but you also have some of the most skilled people working defense,” said Robby Mook, who ran Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016. “Campaigns are facing similar adversaries, and they don’t have similar resources and virtually no expertise.” Traditionally, cybersecurity has been a lower priority for candidates, especially at the early stages of a campaign. They need to raise money, hire staff, pay office rents, lobby for endorsements and travel repeatedly to early voting states. Particularly during primary season, campaign managers face difficult spending decisions: Air a TV ad targeting a key voting demographic or invest in a more robust security system for computer networks?

Florida: After hacking allegation in Mueller report, Florida officials call for briefings | ABC

“The FBI needs to brief the Florida delegation on exactly what Russia did and which counties were involved so we can protect our elections and the voters,” Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., said Thursday in a joint call for more information with his Democratic colleague Rep. Stephanie Murphy. The House members’ demand follows others made by Florida Gov. Rick DeSantis and Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., after the Mueller report’s publication last month. The FBI has reportedly agreed to those earlier requests for briefings. And during an otherwise contentious Senate hearing Wednesday, Attorney General William Barr said he would arrange for the full Senate to be briefed on the reported Russian hack, at the request of Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. The concern grew out of a line in the Mueller report, which said the FBI suspected Russian military intelligence hackers were able to “gain access to the network of at least one Florida county government” through a spear-phishing campaign. Mueller said his investigators did not verify the suspicion, deferring to the FBI.

Georgia: Potential vulnerabilities of new Georgia voting machines evaluated | Atlanta Journal Constitution

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is gauging potential vulnerabilities of the type of voting machines that will soon be used in Georgia. The federal government will work with election officials to better understand the security and auditability of voting systems, said Scott McConnell, a spokesman for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, part of the Department of Homeland Security.“This includes helping to identify potential risks and vulnerabilities for deployed systems as well as informing the development of future systems,” McConnell said. Georgia is preparing to buy a $150 million statewide election system with voting machines called ballot-marking devices. Like the state’s current electronic voting machines, voters using the new ballot-marking devices will choose their candidates on touchscreens. Then printers will create paper ballots for voters to review and insert into scanning computers for tabulation.Federal scrutiny of voting technology comes after a study published last week pointed out weaknesses in ballot-marking devices.If ballot-marking devices are hacked or tampered with, they could print out falsified ballots, according to the study by three cybersecurity experts.

Editorials: Minnesotans last to agree on election security | The News Leaders

Minnesota usually shows up near the top, if not No. 1, in rankings of the states. But on the urgent issue of election security, Minnesota is dead last. Despite pledges of bipartisanship for this legislative session, Democrats and Republicans are deadlocked over how to spend a potential $6 million to improve election security. Minnesota is the only state that has yet to touch its share of the $380 million federal appropriations. Senators and representatives should agree to a plan from Secretary of State Steve Simon to use the money to upgrade the state’s 15-year-old voter system. “Election security shouldn’t be a partisan issue or a bargaining chip,” Gov. Tim Walz said. “It’s time we join every other state in the nation and protect our elections.” The Democrat-controlled house passed Simon’s plan while the Republican-led Senate only wants to spend $1.5 million. Both houses have appointed members to a conference committee to resolve the issue.

Editorials: Securing Electoral Infrastructure: How Alert is India’s Election Chowkidaar | Varsha Rao/MediaNama

With the publication of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s much-awaited report on Russian interference in the United States Presidential Elections of 2016, the threat of hacking and misinformation campaigns to influence elections is taking centre-stage yet again. Closer to home, the discussion has become more pertinent than ever before. In a democratic process of gigantic proportions, 900 million Indians across 543 constituencies are expected to cast their vote in 7 phases to elect a Government for the next five years. The gravity and significance of the ongoing General Elections to the Lok Sabha thus begs the question – how susceptible is the world’s largest democracy to cyber interference? Interfering in an election in the digital age involves a two-pronged attack – firstly, by influencing the political inclination of the electorate via misinformation campaigns on social media platforms, and secondly, by manipulating the electoral infrastructure itself. This article will focus on the latter, more specifically, the infrastructure and processes administered by the Election Commission of India. Unfettered access to voter registration databases arms malicious actors with the ability to alter or delete the information of registered voters, thereby impacting who casts a vote on polling day. Voter information can be deleted from the electoral rolls to accomplish en-masse voter suppression and disenfranchisement along communal and religious lines in an already polarized voting environment. The connectivity of voter databases to various networks for real-time inputs and updates make them highly susceptible to cyberattacks.

National: Schumer presses for election security boost after Mueller report | Politico

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Tuesday called for swift action to boost election security in 2020 in the wake of the Mueller report. In a letter to his Senate Democratic colleagues, the New York Democrat blasted the Trump administration for “not forcefully and adequately responding to the attack on our democracy” described in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Schumer’s letter comes ahead of the caucus’ first meeting since the release of Mueller’s report and one day before Attorney General William Barr is set to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the investigation. Schumer wants a classified briefing from Trump administration officials about steps they are taking to protect the integrity of U.S. elections, including from the heads of the Department of Homeland Security, FBI and Cyber Command.

National: Mueller Objected to Barr’s Description of Russia Investigation’s Findings on Trump | The New York Times

Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, wrote a letter in late March to Attorney General William P. Barr objecting to his early description of the Russia investigation’s conclusions that appeared to clear President Trump on possible obstruction of justice, according to the Justice Department and three people with direct knowledge of the communication between the two men. The letter adds to the growing evidence of a rift between them and is another sign of the anger among the special counsel’s investigators about Mr. Barr’s characterization of their findings, which allowed Mr. Trump to wrongly claim he had been vindicated. It was unclear what specific objections Mr. Mueller raised in his letter, though a Justice Department spokeswoman said on Tuesday evening that he “expressed a frustration over the lack of context” in Mr. Barr’s presentation of his findings on obstruction of justice. Mr. Barr defended his descriptions of the investigation’s conclusions in conversations with Mr. Mueller over the days after he sent the letter, according to two people with knowledge of their discussions. Mr. Barr, who was scheduled to testify on Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee about the investigation, has said publicly that he disagrees with some of the legal reasoning in the Mueller report. Senior Democratic lawmakers have invited Mr. Mueller to testify in the coming weeks but have been unable to secure a date for his testimony.

National: NSA’s Russian cyberthreat task force is now permanent | CyberScoop

The task force the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command created last year to thwart Russian influence and cyberattacks on the U.S. is now permanent, spokespeople from both agencies confirmed to CyberScoop. The “Russia Small Group” — whose existence NSA Director Paul Nakasone announced in July of last year, absent guidance from the White House on how to handle Russian cyberthreats — settles in as the White House, Congress and the Pentagon have taken steps to clarify how and when the military should conduct offensive operations in cyberspace. The NSA would not comment on the number of people on the task force, where it is based, or when the operation became permanent. One intelligence official told CyberScoop the group’s new permanent designation, under routine operations, likely marks a surge of incoming resources, just as in any military surge. “We intend to build on this foundation as we prepare with our interagency partners for a broader challenge in the upcoming 2020 election cycle,” a Cyber Command spokesperson told CyberScoop. The New York Times first reported that the task force had become permanent.

Texas: Senate Bill Is Meant To Improve Election Security But Will It Discourage Voting? | Texas Public Radio

When Texans head to the polls on Super Tuesday in 2020, the act of voting could be very different. Texas lawmakers are looking at bills to cut property taxes and boost school spending, and they're also looking at ways to secure elections in the state, particularly with Senate Bill 9. Omar Escobar, the Starr County district attorney, said rigging elections is a business in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. "Elderly people, many of whom receive a food bank's distributions are approached by workers," he explained, "and being told, 'hey, here's the application for a ballot by mail. You need to sign this thing. And as soon as you get the ballot ... we're going to prepare it for you.' So the practice as we have seen it was that they'd go in, and ... as soon as that ballot came they swoop in and help them sort of vote 'the right way.' Escobar was testifying before the Texas Senate Committee on State Affairs. He said the vote harvesters were paid to collect those ballots. He said voters who handed over their mail ballots to campaign workers had little awareness that their votes were altered and that they were victimized. "Our investigation showed that we had one person -- just one person -- assist 230 voters," he said. "Now this is just [the] application of ballot by mail. On this other side, on the in-person voting, you have people who are going to assist, and, of course, the assistant is watching this voter vote and sometimes marking the ballot for them."

Australia: Government’s $156M cybersecurity pledge a ‘drop in the bucket’: White hat hacker | ARN

The Morrison government's election promise to spend $156 million to bolster Australia's cyber defences is a start but more like a “drop in a bucket," says Security in Depth's Michael Connory. The “cyber resilience and workforce package” will include $50 million to hire more staff under a workforce expansion program; $40 million for a 'countering foreign cyber criminals' capacity within the existing Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC); and $26 million for ACSC to expand its assistance to the community. Michael Connory, security advisor at Security in Depth told CIO Australia the fund is “nowhere near adequate” to help deal with the cyber threats facing Australian businesses and citizens. “It’s significantly better than the other political parties are pledging, but it’s still not close to enough,” he said. “$40 million focused on placing 230+ new cyber experienced staff for military cyber operations – while this is absolutely necessary, the figure probably needs to be doubled.” Connory said at this time Australia "immediately" needs an additional 2,300 individuals to manage the $500 million cost of cybercrime that Australians lost last year.

National: F.B.I. Warns of Russian Interference in 2020 Race and Boosts Counterintelligence Operations | The New York Times

The F.B.I. director warned anew on Friday about Russia’s continued meddling in American elections, calling it a “significant counterintelligence threat.” The bureau has shifted additional agents and analysts to shore up defenses against foreign interference, according to a senior F.B.I. official. The Trump administration has come to see that Russia’s influence operations have morphed into a persistent threat. The F.B.I., the intelligence agencies and the Department of Homeland Security have made permanent the task forces they created to confront 2018 midterm election interference, senior American national security officials said. “We recognize that our adversaries are going to keep adapting and upping their game,” Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, said Friday in a speech in Washington, citing the presence of Russian intelligence officers in the United States and the Kremlin’s record of malign influence operations. “So we are very much viewing 2018 as just kind of a dress rehearsal for the big show in 2020,” he said in his remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. Wray’s warnings came after the report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, laid out in hundreds of pages of detail the interference and influence campaign carried out by Russian operatives in the 2016 election.

While American officials have promised to continue to try to counter, block and weaken the Russian intelligence operations, they have complained of a lack of high-level coordination. President Trump has little interest or patience for hearing about such warnings, officials have said.

Mr. Trump views any discussion of future Russian interference as effectively questioning the legitimacy of his 2016 victory, prompting senior officials to head off discussions with him. Earlier this year, the White House chief of staff told Kirstjen Nielsen, then the homeland security secretary, not to raise the threat of new forms of Russian interference with Mr. Trump, current and former senior administration officials have said.

But outside of meetings with Mr. Trump, intelligence officials have continued to raise alarms. Officials including both Mr. Wray and Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, have said Russia has aimed its influence campaigns at undermining faith in American democracy.

“What has pretty much continued unabated is the use of social media, fake news, propaganda, false personas, etc. to spin us up, pit us against each other, to sow divisiveness and discord, to undermine America’s faith in democracy,” Mr. Wray said on Friday. “That is not just an election-cycle threat. It is pretty much a 365-day-a-year threat.”

In response to growing threats from Russia and other adversaries, the F.B.I. recently moved nearly 40 agents and analysts to the counterintelligence division, the senior bureau official said in an interview this month. Many of the agents will work on the Foreign Influence Task Force, a group of cyber, counterintelligence and criminal experts. Officials have made that task force, initially formed on a temporary basis before the midterm elections, permanent.

The Department of Homeland Security made its midterm election task forces permanent, folding them into an election security initiative at their National Risk Management Center.

National: FBI chief: Russia upping meddling efforts ahead of 2020, midterms a ‘dress rehearsal’ | The Hill

FBI Director Christopher Wray said Friday that the 2018 midterm elections served as a "dress rehearsal" for Russia's election interference efforts slated to be aimed at the 2020 presidential election. Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations, the FBI director said that Russian operatives and other foreign agents are "adapting" to the efforts the U.S. intelligence community is taking to secure America's election systems. "Well, I think — on the one hand I think enormous strides have been made since 2016 by all the different federal agencies, state and local election officials, the social media companies, etc.," Wray said. "But I think we recognize that our adversaries are going to keep adapting and upping their game. And so we’re very much viewing 2018 as just kind of a dress rehearsal for the big show in 2020," he added. One area Wray pointed to where the FBI has seen improvement is in cooperation with social media companies such as Twitter and Facebook, where Russian election meddling was centered in 2016.

National: As security officials prepare for Russian attack on 2020 presidential race, Trump and aides play down threat | The Washington Post

In recent months, U.S. national security officials have been preparing for Russian interference in the 2020 presidential race by tracking cyber threats, sharing intelligence about foreign disinformation efforts with social media companies and helping state election officials protect their systems against foreign manipulation. But these actions are strikingly at odds with statements from President Trump, who has rebuffed warnings from his senior aides about Russia and sought to play down that country’s potential to influence American politics. The president’s rhetoric and lack of focus on election security has made it tougher for government officials to implement a more comprehensive approach to preserving the integrity of the electoral process, current and former officials said. Officials insist that they have made progress since 2016 in hardening defenses. And top security officials, including the director of national intelligence, say the president has given them “full support” in their efforts to counter malign activities. But some analysts worry that by not sending a clear, public signal that he understands the threat foreign interference poses, Trump is inviting more of it. In the past week, Justice Department prosecutors indicated that Russia’s efforts to disrupt the 2016 election are part of a long-term strategy that the United States continues to confront.