Protecting Your Voice by Protecting Your Vote

With less than 75 days until the 2022 election, campaigns are in the final sprint to win over undecided voters and ensure their supporters get out to vote. At the same time, local, state, and federal officials are in the home stretch of their efforts to protect the nation’s elections and ensure the ballots are counted accurately.

Leading these efforts is a federal agency few outside utility providers and poll workers have probably heard of. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, part of the Department of Homeland Security, oversees “the national effort to understand, manage, and reduce risk to the digital and physical infrastructure Americans rely on every hour of every day.” This mission includes protecting both digital and physical election infrastructure across the country. Though states and local governments are tasked with actually conducting the elections, CISA plays a critical role by providing training, coordination, and resources.

“Fair and free elections are a hallmark of American democracy. The American people’s confidence in the value of their vote is principally reliant on the security and resilience of the infrastructure that makes the Nation’s elections possible. Accordingly, an electoral process that is both secure and resilient is a vital national interest and one of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)’s highest priorities.” (CISA)

In conjunction with the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS), and the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED), CISA regularly hosts tabletop exercises to expose vulnerabilities and prepare election officials for a wide range of potential threats. This year’s exercise included participants from the U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, U.S. Department of Justice, National Security Agency, the National Guard, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General and U.S. Postal Inspection Service, industry partners, and local officials. CISA also offers a toolkit of free services available to help election officials “enhance the cybersecurity and cyber resilience of U.S. election infrastructure.”

Additionally, the FBI launched the Protected Voices Initiative in 2019 to “offer guidance on ransomware, business email compromise, supply chain, social media literacy, and foreign influence operations. Other videos, released in 2018, include cyber hygiene topics such as social engineering, patching, router hardening, and app and browser safety.” Likewise, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission advises on best practices, such as “using locks, tamper-evident seals, security cameras, system testing before and after elections, audits, and physical and cybersecurity access controls.” It too hosts a video library highlighting election security efforts.

Non-profits also play an important role in protecting the nation’s elections. The Center for Internet Security hosts the Election Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center which monitors election technology for signs of cyber-attacks and hacking. The Brennan Center for Justice provides independent reviews of critical technology, such as voting machines, analyzes election related-spending, and pushes states and the federal government to make improvements to voting infrastructure.

While 2020 was not the first time that a losing campaign claimed voter fraud and election tampering influenced the outcome of the election, there has been a notable decline in Americans’ trust in the election process in the last two years. In reality, third-party review of the last presidential election by the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Election Law and the Cybersecurity Legal Task Force confirmed that “CISA in collaboration with the FBI and other federal agencies, technology companies, state and local election agencies and officials, and the private sector, helped safeguard the election from a cybersecurity standpoint through planning, coordination, practice, and implementation.”

This year, CISA, in conjunction with federal, state, local, and independent partners, has continued these efforts to protect voting in the United States. From Maine to Hawaii, all Americans should feel confident that their voice will be heard and their vote will be counted.

Nicholas Monck served as the Deputy Director for Voter Protection for the Colorado Democratic Party in 2018 and Boulder County Democratic Party Legal Team Co-Lead from 2017–2019. Opinions expressed are his own and do not represent the views of his employer.