U.S. Department of Homeland Security

DHS Looks to Reboot Relationship with Election Officials

Local and state officials decried January's designation of election systems as critical infrastructure. Now DHS is trying to get everyone on the same page.

The Homeland Security Department plans to meet with a task force of state election officials in the next few months in an effort to iron out disagreements over DHS’ designation of election systems as critical infrastructure, a department official said Wednesday.

That designation, made weeks after the 2016 presidential election was roiled by Russian-government backed data breaches, sparked an angry backlash from state election leaders who considered it a federal power grab.

The National Association of Secretaries of State passed a resolution condemning the move in February.

The association also, however, formed a task force of 27 secretaries of state—the state official responsible for managing state and local elections—focused on election cybersecurity and sharing information about cyber threats.

DHS plans to meet with representatives from that task force in the next couple months and is hoping for a friendlier reception, Neil Jenkins, director of DHS’ Enterprise Performance Management Office, said.

Since the secretaries’ resolution, DHS has responded to a slate of questions from the secretaries of state and has spent more time laying out the designation’s advantages, Jenkins told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Information Security Privacy Advisory Board.

“They’re taking this from a very deliberative approach and we’re taking this from a very deliberative approach,” he said. “We want to work with them and listen to them.”

Ironing out those differences is vital because DHS hopes to have a full critical infrastructure subsector for election systems up and running by early 2018 in time for the midterm elections, Jenkins said.

There was speculation during the early days of the Trump administration that the new administration might reverse the Obama-era designation, but that’s off the table, Jenkins said.

DHS Secretary John Kelly "made a public statement to Congress that we see this as the right thing and we’re going to continue with it,” he said. “As of right now, there’s no talk of rolling it back.”

DHS also is reaching out to vendors of election systems such as voting machines, vote-tallying machines and voter databases, which there wasn’t time to do in the lead up to the 2016 election, Jenkins said.

Over all, vendors have been more open to those meetings than state and local officials, Jenkins told reporters, urged on by the security benefits of receiving additional federal help, such as security clearances for some industry officials to view classified threat information.

One main element of the critical infrastructure designation is a coordinating council, organized by the critical infrastructure sector itself in order to share cyber threat information and conduct planning with DHS.

It’s likely election system vendors will stand up a separate coordinating council from state and local election officials, Jenkins said.

The designation also allows DHS to task a handful of employees to focus full time on election security concerns, he said.

“Just like they’re busy getting focused on other things, we often get pulled in different directions,” Jenkins said. “If we don’t stand up an office and tell a couple of people, ‘your job is to engage with election officials,’ then we might not engage with them robustly until an election, until something popped up.”

DHS has long interacted with state and local election officials on a superficial level as part of its government facilities critical infrastructure sector, Jenkins said, but officials were less familiar with the complexity of election operations before 2016 breaches at the Democratic National Committee and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and at state-level systems in Illinois and Arizona forced them to take a closer look.

What they found was more complexity than they ever expected, he said. In addition to voting infrastructure that varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, there’s often a complex relationship at the state level where secretaries of state are sometimes firewalled and set up on different networks than other elected officials.

That means it’s often difficult to share information and expertise through a single point.

The greatest dangers don’t come from voting machines themselves, which are not supposed to be connected to the internet, but from centralized vote tabulation systems, voter databases and other web-connected infrastructure, he said.

Despite that complexity, election officials, by and large, have taken security seriously, he said. But they’re up against an outsized adversary.

“I don’t want to make it sound like election officials don’t know what they’re doing,” he said. “They did a good job with their defenses. When you have an actor at a nation-state capability level like the Russians, you want to make sure you’re doing everything right because they will find a way to get into your systems.”

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.