    [House Hearing, 116 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                        EXPLORING THE FEASIBILITY AND SECURITY
                         OF TECHNOLOGY TO CONDUCT REMOTE
                              VOTING IN THE HOUSE

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                               COMMITTEE ON HOUSE
                                 ADMINISTRATION
                            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                         ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 SECOND SESSION

                                   __________

                                 JULY 17, 2020

                                   __________

          Printed for the use of the Committee on House Administration

    [GRAPHC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                           Available on the Internet:
             http://www.govinfo.gov/committee/house-administration

                                    __________

                        U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
    41-953 PDF                  WASHINGTON : 2020

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                       Committee on House Administration

                      ZOE LOFGREN, California, Chairperson
    JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland               RODNEY DAVIS, Illinois,
    SUSAN A. DAVIS, California             Ranking Member
    G. K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina    MARK WALKER, North Carolina
    MARCIA L. FUDGE, Ohio                BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia
    PETE AGUILAR, California

                               C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------

                                 JULY 17, 2020

                                                                       Page
    Exploring the Feasibility and Security of Technology to Conduct
      Remote Voting in the House.....................................     1

                               OPENING STATEMENTS

    Chairperson Zoe Lofgren..........................................     1
        Prepared statement of Chairperson Lofgren....................    10
    Hon. Rodney Davis, Ranking Member................................    14
        Prepared statement of Ranking Member Davis...................    17

                                   WITNESSES

    Hon. Cheryl L. Johnson, Clerk of the U.S. House of
      Representatives................................................    22
        Prepared statement of Hon. Johnson...........................    24
    Newt Gingrich, Former Member and Speaker of the House, U.S. House
      of Representatives.............................................    27
        Prepared statement of Mr. Gingrich...........................    29
    William Crowell, Partner, Alsop Louie Partners...................    33
        Prepared statement of Mr. Crowell............................    35
    Jon Green, Vice President and Chief Security Technologist, Aruba
      Networks.......................................................    39
        Prepared statement of Mr. Green..............................    41
    Dr. Ronald L. Rivest, Institute Professor, Massachusetts
      Institute of Technology........................................    45
        Prepared statement of Dr. Rivest.............................    47
    Dr. Aviel Rubin, Professor and Technical Director, Information
      Security Institute, Johns Hopkins University...................    50
        Prepared statement of Dr. Rubin..............................    52
    Dr. David Wagner, Professor of Computer Science, University of
      California, Berkeley...........................................    54
        Prepared statement of Dr. Wagner.............................    56

                            QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD

    Hon. Cheryl L. Johnson, Clerk of the U.S. House of
      Representatives, answers to submitted questions................    75
    Jon Green, Vice President and Chief Security Technologist, Aruba
      Networks, answers to submitted questions.......................    79
    Dr. Ronald L. Rivest, Institute Professor, Massachusetts
      Institute of Technology, answers to submitted questions........    82
    Dr. Aviel Rubin, Professor and Technical Director, Information
      Security Institute, Johns Hopkins University, answers to
      submitted questions............................................    84
    Dr. David Wagner, Professor of Computer Science, University of
      California, Berkeley, answers to submitted questions\1\........    86

                           SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

    Electronic Vote Recorder, Patent No. 90,646, Thomas A. Edison....     4
    Letter, Daniel Schuman, Policy Director, Demand Progress and Zach
      Graves, Head of Policy, Lincoln Network........................    87

    ----------
    \1\ Dr. Wagner did not answer submitted questions for the record by the
    time of printing.

    EXPLORING THE FEASIBILITY AND SECURITY OF TECHNOLOGY TO CONDUCT REMOTE
                              VOTING IN THE HOUSE

                                  ----------

                             FRIDAY, JULY 17, 2020

                              House of Representatives,
                             Committee on House Administration,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 1:03 p.m., via
    Webex, Hon. Zoe Lofgren Chairperson of the Committee presiding.
        Present: Representatives Lofgren, Raskin, Davis of
    California, Butterfield, Fudge, Aguilar, Davis of Illinois,
    Walker, and Loudermilk.
        Staff Present: Jamie Fleet, Staff Director; Khalil Abboud,
    Deputy Staff Director; Dan Taylor, General Counsel; Brandon
    Jacobs, Legislative Clerk; Matthew Schlesinger, Oversight
    Counsel; Peter Whippy, Communications Director; David Tucker,
    Senior Counsel & Parliamentarian; Jen Daulby, Minority Staff
    Director; Tim Monahan, Minority Deputy Staff Director; and Cole
    Felder, Minority General Counsel.
        The Chairperson. The Committee on House Administration will
    come to order, and I have a gavel.
        I would now like to call the roll so that we will know that
    we have a quorum present. First, I am here.
        I will ask, Mr. Davis, are you present?
        Mr. Davis, I see you. Say ``here.''
        Mr. Davis of Illinois. Yes, I am present. I had to get to
    unmute.
        The Chairperson. Okay. Mr. Raskin.
        [No response.]
        The Chairperson. He is not present.
        Mr. Walker of North Carolina?
        [No response.]
        The Chairperson. Not present.
        Mrs. Davis of California.
        Mrs. Davis of California. Present.
        The Chairperson. Mr. Loudermilk of Georgia.
        Mr. Loudermilk. Present.
        The Chairperson. Mr. Butterfield of North Carolina.
        Mr. Butterfield. Present.
        The Chairperson. Ms. Fudge of Ohio.
        Ms. Fudge. Present.
        The Chairperson. Mr. Aguilar of California.
        Mr. Aguilar. Present.
        The Chairperson. So a quorum being present, I would like to
    thank the Members of the Committee and our witnesses----
        Mr. Davis of Illinois. Madam Chair.
        The Chairperson. Yes.
        Mr. Davis of Illinois. Just a quick point of order. I do
    know Mark Walker is on. So, for the initial period of
    attendance, he is here. He is having difficulty with the video.
    So I think the team is working on the video for him.
        The Chairperson. Very good. We will note that for the
    record.
        Mr. Davis of Illinois. Thank you.
        The Chairperson. We are holding this hearing in compliance
    with the regulations for remote committee proceedings pursuant
    to House Resolution 965. Section 5 of House Resolution 965
    requires this Committee to ``study the feasibility of using
    technology to conduct remote voting in the House,'' and ``to
    provide certification to the House upon a determination that
    such operable and secure technology exists to commit remote
    voting in the House.''
        Today's hearing will explore the technological and security
    issues surrounding remote voting and will inform our study of
    these issues.
        As we begin, I want to remind all our members and
    participants of a few things that will help us navigate this
    platform. We are holding this hearing in compliance with the
    regulations for remote committee proceedings pursuant to the
    resolution. However, the fundamental nature of the hearing and
    our rules are unchanged.
        Generally, the Committee will keep microphones muted to
    limit background noise. When we meet in person, in our
    Committee room, members need to unmute themselves when seeking
    recognition or when recognized for their five minutes.
    Witnesses will also need to unmute themselves when recognized
    for their five minutes or when answering a question.
        Members and witnesses, please keep your cameras on at all
    times. If you need to step away for a moment during the
    proceedings, please leave your cameras on and do not leave the
    meeting within the Webex platform.
        And at this time, I ask unanimous consent that all members
    have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks
    and that any written statements be made part of the record.
        And, hearing no objection, that is so ordered.
        This is our first virtual full Committee hearing, and it is
    fitting that I am joining you from Silicon Valley. In recent
    months, the House has made important use of new technology,
    including virtual hearings, to continue operations during the
    COVID pandemic. These advances are particularly noteworthy
    because, as an institution, the House has not always been quick
    to adopt technology to its legislative procedures.
        A young inventor once observed that what he called ``the
    enormous waste of time in Congress,'' spent taking roll call
    votes. So that 21-year-old invented an electronic system that
    would permit instantly and accurately recording Members' votes
    ``thus avoiding loss of valuable time consumed in counting and
    registering the votes and names,'' and saving time for more
    important, substantive legislative business.
        But when he presented his idea to Congress, he was told it
    would impair the ability of the minority to influence
    legislation. So that Electrographic Vote Recorder and Register
    described in the first of more than 1,000 patents that Thomas
    Edison was issued was essentially ignored by Congress.
        I would ask unanimous consent to enter Mr. Edison's patent
    No. 9646 into the record.
        And, without objection, so ordered.
        [The information follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        The Chairperson. It would take another 20 years for anyone
    to introduce the first bill to permit a form of electronic
    voting. By the time the House took its first electronic vote in
    1973, more than a century had passed since Edison first
    suggested the idea. It also took more than 40 years from the
    time Members of the House first appeared on live television to
    the time when cameras were allowed to broadcast live
    proceedings on the House floor.
        It is not unusual for any institution steeped in history
    and precedent to resist change. That was the case for the House
    when it came to advances like electronic voting and televising
    our proceedings, both of which we take for granted today.
        But we can't afford that attitude today in the face of the
    COVID crisis. That is why the House recently passed a
    resolution to ensure that we can continue to govern during the
    coronavirus pandemic. The resolution authorized new ways to
    conduct our legislative business.
        For example, the House authorized remote committee
    proceedings like this one. The House also authorized remote
    directed proxy voting on the floor. And the House directed
    further study of a third possible tool: remote voting. That
    review is the purpose of today's hearing.
        In some respects, these are new tools for governing, but
    they are within our authority to implement, and they are not
    intended to replace our regular order. To the contrary, they
    represent prudent and responsible steps to ensure that the
    House can continue to lead during this crisis. As the
    resolution makes clear, they are intended to be used only
    during extraordinary circumstances. There can be no doubt that
    these are extraordinary times.
        Our Nation and the world continue to grapple with the
    devastating spread of a historic pandemic, and the spread of
    the disease in the United States is worsening. Today, more than
    3.5 million Americans have been confirmed to have COVID. That
    is a greater number than the population of 21 individual
    States.
        More Americans have died in the last few months from COVID
    than were killed in all military conflicts U.S. has fought
    since World War II combined. Plus, because of the continuing
    problems with access to testing, we don't know for sure how
    many Americans have actually contracted the virus, but the
    experts believe the actual figure could be as high as 20
    million.
        We are still learning about how highly contagious this
    deadly virus is and how it is spread, what steps can be taken
    to mitigate its further spread. New reports have suggested that
    the immunity gained by those who recover from COVID could be
    short lived.
        As bad as things already are, cases are continuing to rise
    in more than 40 States. This week, the Director of the Centers
    for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Redfield, said he
    believes that ``The fall and winter of 2020 and 2021 are going
    to be probably one of the most difficult times that we have
    experienced in American public health.''
        This crisis demands legislative action and oversight and
    the continued work of the Congress, and it also means that we
    have a responsibility to the institution and the American
    people to explore additional ways to be able to continue work
    in the face of the pandemic.
        Consider the alternative: In a number of States outbreaks
    among State legislators have impacted the ability to conduct
    State business. In Mississippi this week, more than 40
    legislators and staff, including at least 30 members, have
    tested positive for the disease. The Speaker of the House and
    the Lieutenant Governor, who presides over the Senate, are both
    positive. That has left the State government in limbo with
    significant pending business unfinished. In several other
    States, tragically, legislators have died.
        Here in Congress, nearly 60 Members have publicly disclosed
    that they tested positive, self-quarantined, or had otherwise
    come in contact with someone who was positive. At one point at
    the same time, at least 22 Members of the House had either
    tested positive, were presumed positive, or were in self-
    quarantine because of someone who they had been exposed to who
    was positive.
        That is in addition to the scores of other institutional
    leg branch staff who contracted COVID, including personnel from
    the Capitol Police, the Architect of the Capitol, the GPO, and
    others.
        I am mindful that many people are putting themselves at
    risk by working on the front lines every day, from doctors and
    nurses, to police officers, firefighters, and paramedics, to
    transit workers and truck drivers, among others.
        As the daughter of a truck driver and a school cafeteria
    cook, I deeply appreciate everything people in many critical
    lines of work are doing to support their communities and the
    country, even at risk to their own health. However, we in
    Congress have an option that most of these vital frontline
    workers do not have: we can do our work remotely in a safe,
    secure, online format.
        We have already taken a number of significant steps to do
    that. In just two months, the House has held 29 votes, which
    included remote directed proxy votes. These votes have produced
    legislation signed into law by the President. House committees
    have held more than 86 committee hearings and markups.
        These events have included more than 185 hours of
    testimony, questions, statements, and debate. Of those
    committee events, 78 were hearings, and of those hearings, 49
    were fully remote, 29 were hybrid, during which some Members
    were in Washington while others participated remotely.
        More than 226 individuals have provided testimony as
    witnesses in remote or hybrid hearings. In addition, in April,
    the Speaker directed the creation of an all-electronic--hopper
    to permit the virtual submission of all floor documents,
    including bills, resolutions, cosponsors, and extension of
    remarks, via a dedicated and secure email system. Since the
    policy took effect, 1,307 measures have been filed
    electronically while just 51 were filed using the old process.
        And in my capacity as chairperson of the Joint Committee on
    Printing, I directed the GPO to accept for publication in the
    Congressional Record extensions of remarks submitted with the
    Member's electronic signature. Under this new, more convenient
    system, Members have filed 897 extensions of remarks by email.
        All of these are remarkable changes in the history of the
    institution. We have acted swiftly to use technology because
    when we maximize our remote work, we minimize needless exposure
    of everyone who works on Capitol Hill, and that includes the
    Capitol Police, the cleaning staff, other institutional staff,
    the press, legislative staff, and Members.
        Virtual and hybrid committee events have been, by and
    large, very successful. Although there have been some
    relatively small number of technical issues, in considering
    these, it is important to keep in mind that expanding use of
    virtual or remote congressional activity where appropriate
    ensures that we can continue to act in a manner that is safe
    for the legislative branch workforce while also preserving
    precious testing equipment and supplies for frontline workers
    who don't have jobs that can be performed remotely.
        The highest levels of all three branches of our Federal
    Government have recognized the need to adapt our work in the
    21st century and that we can do so in a safe, secure, and
    transparent way.
        In addition to the changes we have made in the House, the
    Senate has held numerous virtual hearings. The Supreme Court,
    which long resisted modest attempts to increase transparency
    and public access to its proceedings, has heard oral arguments
    by conference call.
        These important cases involve critical congressional
    oversight prerogatives, and for its part, the executive branch
    has recognized the legitimacy of these proceedings by
    participating in virtual or remote proceedings, both Chambers
    of Congress, and the Supreme Court.
        Now, as I mentioned, I represent Silicon Valley, which has
    become synonymous around the world for technology and the
    spirit of innovation. We in Congress must adopt the
    entrepreneurial spirit and openness to new technology that made
    my community a global leader and apply it to the procedural and
    logistical challenges we face in our legislative operations, as
    well as to strategy to respond to and overcome the coronavirus.
        Remote voting could be another powerful tool to permit the
    House to continue its work. The Committee on Rules has already
    had significant discussions about the constitutional basis and
    foundation for using technology to bolster legislative
    operations during the pandemic. So that is not the focus of
    this Committee hearing today.
        Our purpose is to assess the specific issue of the
    feasibility of using technology to conduct remote voting in the
    House.
        With that in mind, I look forward to hearing from our
    esteemed panel of witnesses.
        I would now like to recognize our Ranking Member, Rodney
    Davis, for his opening statement.
        [The statement of the Chairperson follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Davis of Illinois. Thank you, Madam Chairperson.
        This is a great opportunity for us to--let me get my audio
    stuff taken care of here. I apologize.
        Chairperson, thank you for holding today's hearing. I
    appreciate hearing from the Majority about the different
    provisions that the House has passed already to deal with the
    coronavirus. We came together for four very important bills
    that dealt with saving our economy, making sure that we allowed
    small businesses to survive and sustain themselves during this
    pandemic.
        But the provisions that were put in place, as was mentioned
    by the Chairperson, were not done by the House as a whole; they
    were done by the Majority. Remote voting is being discussed
    because it is a provision that was recommended by the Majority
    in the House only. There are many of us who have concerns with
    the provisions that are in place for proxy voting and for
    remote and hybrid hearings.
        And I appreciate, though, today that we are going to
    discuss the feasibility of remote voting because, regardless of
    our concerns, we have to make sure that we debate the merits of
    any provisions, even if they are pushed through by only the
    Majority. I think this is an important conversation. I hope the
    transparent process continues before the Majority decides to
    move forward with implementation.
        I would like to welcome all of our witnesses, especially
    former Speaker Gingrich. I believe the Speaker offers a unique
    perspective, and I do appreciate his willingness to
    participate. I hope with the long opening statements, Mr.
    Speaker, that this is not a delay game since you are across the
    Atlantic Ocean and on a different time schedule, but stick with
    us. I think America needs to hear what you are going to say on
    this issue.
        But before we discuss the possibility of remote voting, I
    think it is important to lay out where we are now, how we got
    to this point, and the process that has driven the operational
    decision making of this institution during the COVID-19
    pandemic.
        When this coronavirus began spreading across our country
    and the rest of the world, we knew it was only a matter of time
    until we would be impacted in the people's House. In March,
    there was a bipartisan effort to quickly transition thousands
    of staff to telework. That was an enormous lift and only made
    possible through the tireless work of the Chief Administrative
    Officer, which I must add, didn't exist until Speaker Gingrich
    was Speaker of the House, and then also the Sergeant at Arms
    offices.
        And I would like to thank Chairperson Lofgren for working
    in a very bipartisan way to make that happen. Then the
    conversation turned to additional procedural changes that would
    be required for the House to continue to operate. These efforts
    did not incorporate bipartisan input.
        On March 23rd, Democrats released a report concluding
    remote voting in any form would almost certainly cause
    unintended consequences if not done with adequate forethought
    and discussion, and change cannot be implemented overnight and
    likely cannot be accomplished in time to address the current
    crisis.
        Well, despite this and without any public hearings or
    bipartisan support, the majority passed H. Res. 965 on May
    15th, which authorized proxy voting, remote committee
    proceedings, and authorized remote voting pending a
    certification from Chairperson Lofgren.
        Since the implementation of H. Res. 965, 572 proxy votes
    have been cast on the House floor, dozens of virtual hearings
    and markups, and a lawsuit filed in Federal court on the
    grounds that proxy voting is unconstitutional.
        During today's hearing, we will hear lots of discussion on
    IT capabilities that can support remote voting, the types of
    requirements that a system should have to safeguard against
    threats, and examples of entities already using remote voting.
        Four months before this hearing, when it became apparent
    the direction of the Democratic majority and where they were
    heading, I directed my team to formally engage with the GAO to
    better understand remote voting technologies. This engagement
    has been productive, and I am confident that there is a
    technology that exists to support remote voting.
        I also have confidence in the Clerk and her staff's ability
    to execute if directed.
        What I am concerned about is that the House seems to be in
    a very reactionary posture with sweeping changes being made
    with little consideration around longer-term impacts.
        We have already seen numerous hearings and markups
    disrupted by technical difficulties, resulting in the nature of
    those proceedings changing; fewer standalone amendments being
    made in order for floor consideration; increased usage of en
    bloc amendment packages at committee hearings and on the floor;
    and dozens of examples of Members from both parties not
    following the prescribed regulations with no consequences. No
    one can say with a straight face that these trends are a good
    thing or that the quality of the deliberative process that is
    the hallmark of the House hasn't been sacrificed.
        Over the last six months, we have seen essential workers
    across our Nation step up, make sacrifices, and take on risk,
    all in the name of our collective well-being. I know the
    grocery store clerks, the truck drivers, farmers, healthcare
    workers, like my wife, and first responders in my district
    expect their elected leaders to have the same willingness and
    patriotic duty to make sacrifices just as they do every shift.
        Americans look to their elected leaders to set an example,
    and they don't appreciate Congress skipping out on their duties
    to attend events across their States that seem more desirable
    than the difficult task of governing during a pandemic.
        As our country continues to be impacted by the coronavirus,
    the example I want to set is that we stand side by side with
    the essential workers of this country, and I don't believe that
    can be done solely behind a computer screen and over emails.
        We have debated scenarios like this before, and Members who
    are unable to travel can submit statements to the Congressional
    Record. And we have a rule that this Majority adopted at the
    beginning of this Congress that allows for a quorum to be
    adjusted in an emergency.
        I will end with a quote from the U.K.'s House of Commons
    leader, Jacob Rees-Mogg, who recently announced they will be
    scaling back their virtual Parliament. He said: Rather than
    suffering the depredations of the muted, hybrid Parliament, we
    are once again talking to each other in ways impossible when we
    were scattered to the four winds. Rather than wading through
    the treacle of the hybrid proceedings, we are once again fleet
    afoot and dancing a legislative quickstep.
        And, Madam Chair, I am glad you didn't ask me to dance
    here, but thank you, and I yield back.
        [The statement of Mr. Davis of Illinois follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        The Chairperson. The gentleman yields back.
        Without objection, other Members of the Committee may have
    their opening statements included in the record.
        I would now like to introduce each member of our panel.
    Each of our witnesses will be recognized for five minutes, and
    I will remind our witnesses that their entire written
    statements will be made part of the record.
        Also, please note that there should be a timer on your
    screen. Please be sure that you can see the timer and are
    mindful of the five-minute limit. I don't have a heavy gavel,
    but we do hope to keep within the five minutes.
        Let me introduce our witnesses. First, we have Cheryl
    Johnson, who is the 36th individual to serve as Clerk of the
    United States House of Representatives. As Clerk, Ms. Johnson
    has a variety of legislative, ceremonial, administrative, and
    preservation responsibilities. These responsibilities include
    but are not limited to certifying passage of House bills and
    resolutions, maintaining the electronic voting system, and
    retaining a permanent set of the books and documents generated
    by the House.
        Before being sworn in as Clerk in February of 2019, Ms.
    Johnson worked for nearly 20 years in the House and 10 years at
    the Smithsonian Institution.
        Next, we have Representative Newt Gingrich. Mr. Gingrich
    served as Speaker of the House in the 104th and the 105th
    Congresses. He was first elected to the House in 1978 and
    represented Georgia's Sixth District from 1979 until 1999.
        Mr. Gingrich has served as a member of the Defense Policy
    Board and was a candidate for the Republican Presidential
    nomination during the 2012 election. He has also written 36
    books. He serves as a distinguished visiting scholar and
    professor at the National Defense University.
        I would note that he is joining us from Rome today, and
    welcome. I know it is about 7:30 p.m. your time. So we
    appreciate this. And I just--as a personal note, I would note
    that my very first day as a Member of Congress was the day that
    you became Speaker of the House. So welcome. It is good to see
    you again.
        Bill Crowell is an expert in information technology,
    security, and intelligence systems. He is the former Deputy
    Director of the National Security Agency and was appointed to
    this position after serving as Deputy Director of Operations.
        After his service at the NSA, Mr. Crowell moved to the
    private sector and served as CEO of Cylink Corporation, a
    public e-business security solution company, and Chairman of
    BroadWare Technologies, a video surveillance software company.
        He also served as Chairman of the Director of National
    Intelligence Senior Advisory Group from 2007 to 2014 and
    currently sits on the Department of Homeland Security Science
    and Technology Advisory Board.
        Jon Green is a vice president and the chief technologist
    for cybersecurity and government solutions at Aruba Networks, a
    Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company. In this role, he is
    responsible for providing technology guidance and leadership
    for all security solutions, including authentication and
    network access control, encryption, firewall, and VPN.
        He works closely with the U.S. Government on secure network
    and remote access solutions and manages both Aruba's Product
    Security Response Team and its Threat Lab, an internal security
    research group.
        Dr. Ron Rivest is an institute professor at the
    Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is widely known as
    coauthor of the textbook ``Introduction to Algorithms'' and as
    coinventor of the RSA public-key cryptosystem. He is also a
    cofounder of both RSA and Verisign.
        An expert in election security and cryptography, Dr. Rivest
    is a recipient of the ACM Turing Award, the BBVA Frontiers of
    Knowledge Award, and a Marconi Prize. He has served on the
    Election Assistance Commission's Technical Guidelines
    Development Committee and is a member of the Caltech/MIT Voting
    Technology Project, as well as the Board of Verified Voting.
        Dr. Aviel Rubin is a professor of computer science at Johns
    Hopkins University, where he also serves as technical director
    of the Information Security Institute. Dr. Rubin is an expert
    in computer security and applied cryptography and was among the
    first to expose the vulnerabilities of electronic voting in his
    book ``Brave New Ballot: The Battle to Safeguard Democracy in
    the Age of Electronic Voting.''
        Dr. Rubin has briefed Congress and the Department of
    Defense on election tampering and other national security
    issues. He served as director and principal investigator for
    the National Science Foundation's Center for Correct, Usable,
    Reliable, Auditable, and Transparent Elections, otherwise known
    as the ACCURATE Center.
        Dr. David Wagner is a professor of computer science at UC
    Berkeley, where he has worked on electronic voting, software
    security, wireless security, sensor network security, and
    applied cryptography. He is a part of Berkeley's security
    research group and is also an active member of the ACCURATE
    Center.
        Dr. Wagner has developed quite a bit of software, including
    tools to help with the auditing of elections. In addition to
    his duties as a professor, Dr. Wagner currently sits on the
    editorial board for the Journal of Election Technology Systems
    and is part of the Science of Security Project.
        These are distinguished witnesses, and we are eager to hear
    from them.
        So I will first recognize Ms. Johnson for your testimony of
    about 5 minutes. Welcome.

      STATEMENTS OF THE HONORABLE CHERYL L. JOHNSON, CLERK OF THE
    U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES; NEWT GINGRICH, FORMER SPEAKER OF
    THE HOUSE; WILLIAM CROWELL, PARTNER, ALSOP LOUIE PARTNERS; JON
     GREEN, VICE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF SECURITY TECHNOLOGIST, ARUBA
     NETWORKS; RONALD L. RIVEST, INSTITUTE PROFESSOR, MIT COMPUTER
    SCIENCE AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE LAB; AVIEL RUBIN, PROFESSOR
         AND TECHNICAL DIRECTOR, THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
     INFORMATION SECURITY INSTITUTE; AND DAVID WAGNER, PROFESSOR,
     COMPUTER SCIENCE DIVISION, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY.

              STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE CHERYL L. JOHNSON

        Ms. Johnson. Thank you. Good afternoon. Chairperson
    Lofgren, Ranking Member Davis, Members of the Committee, thank
    you for inviting me to participate in this hearing on such a
    critical topic.
        Since 1789, the Office of the Clerk has supported the
    legislative functions of the U.S. House of Representatives. The
    Clerk maintains the House Journal, certifies the passage of
    legislation, verifies the accuracy of each individual vote,
    records the vote, tallies the vote, and transmits the results
    to the public.
        After 181 years of manual voting, the House passed the
    Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970, authorizing electronic
    voting. And while the bill was passed in 1970, it was another 3
    years before the system was developed and put into use. That
    system, the Electronic Voting System, or EVS, is a real-time,
    computerized information system. EVS resides on its own private
    air-gapped network, separated from the House network, which
    affords it a very high level of security.
        The voting procedures are as follows: Voting stations are
    distributed throughout the Chamber and equipped with a vote
    card slot, voting buttons, and a system readiness indicator.
    Each Member who chooses to vote electronically does so by
    inserting a personalized voting card into a voting station and
    selecting a voting button to cast their vote. Voting results
    are displayed on screens in the House Chamber.
        In 2018, all of the voting stations were upgraded with the
    latest proximity card reader technology and new capability to
    assist visually impaired Members. An LED display was added to
    provide additional vote confirmation to Members directly on the
    vote station. We also implemented a new network architecture
    for greater security and flexibility for future expansions.
        I am confident that, as the House looks to our office to
    inform and implement the critical decisions it will make in the
    coming months and years to preserve and protect the legislative
    process, we will rise to the occasion.
        Recently, pursuant to House Resolution 965, the House
    allowed its first proxy vote. On our website, we post the
    letters which designate who holds the proxy for the Member
    voting by proxy. Our staff worked long and hard to ensure a
    successful implementation. To date, we have held 29 votes with
    proxies without incident.
        The topic you are discussing today and moving forward is of
    great importance. However the House decides to proceed on how
    it conducts voting, our office will be prepared to advise on
    the associated costs, benefits, and challenges, and we will be
    prepared to implement whatever decisions are made to ensure the
    continuity of this irreplaceable institution.
        If the House chooses to pursue remote voting, we will need
    to perform an exhaustive review of the requirements, available
    technology, design options, and, once developed, a very
    thorough testing to ensure its highest level of security,
    reliability, and availability.
        It is critical that we ensure complete confidence of the
    Members and the public in the way House votes are recorded. As
    with the initial development of the EVS and with each past
    upgrade, it will be critical to take the necessary time to
    implement any remote voting system correctly and securely.
        The mission of the Clerk's Office is to support the House
    in carrying out its legislative responsibilities, and I am
    committed to these duties with maximum integrity and
    reliability.
        Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
        [The statement of Ms. Johnson follows:]
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        The Chairperson. Thank you very much. It is great to hear
    from you.
        Now, I would like to recognize our former Speaker.
        Mr. Gingrich, we are looking forward to hearing your
    testimony. You may need to unmute. Can somebody unmute Mr.
    Gingrich?
        Mr. Gingrich. I think I am now unmuted.
        The Chairperson. There you are. We can hear you.

                       STATEMENT OF NEWT GINGRICH

        Mr. Gingrich. Okay. Sorry. Let me just say, first of all,
    thank you, Chairperson Lofgren, and I want to thank Ranking
    Member Davis. I served for a decade on the House Administration
    Committee. So it is kind of fun to be back and be part of this
    process.
        I think learning by video is very good and very useful. I
    think trying to govern by video is a disaster. And the key
    factor is not going to be all the technology we hear about
    today. The key factor is how human beings learn and the pattern
    of the collective dialogue which makes up a legislative body
    and how, over time, its Members become collectively smarter by
    interacting with each other.
        The Founding Fathers were virtually all members of
    legislatures before they created the United States, and they
    believed in the legislature. In fact, if you look at the
    Constitution, the legislative branch is first and has a long
    section devoted to the House and Senate before they get around
    to the executive branch.
        The Federalist Papers make very clear that they thought a
    legislative parliament meeting on a regular basis was a key to
    protecting freedom. And the reason they thought that is that
    they had studied carefully the rise of Cromwell as a dictator
    during the English civil war, and they were very frightened
    that an executive branch that didn't have a vigorous
    legislative body would always be a danger and a threat to our
    freedom.
        So their view was that you had to have people who got
    together regularly; they had to bond together; they had to be
    prepared to do things, to learn from each other, and to
    communicate. I remember, when I used to be on the House floor,
    during the course of one or two votes, you could see 8, 10, 12,
    15 different people, learn about things all across the country.
        So I want to emphasize from my part--not the technology.
    You will hear a lot about technology today--although with all
    the various hacking, I would be worried about it. But I don't
    worry about technology. I worry about history and the nature of
    human institutions, and I think they require us to physically
    be together regularly.
        I would just say that I think there are three severe
    consequences of going to any kind of remote system. The first,
    as a former Speaker who has been accused on occasion of being
    very powerful, I think when everybody else is out of town, the
    Speaker and their staff become virtually a dictatorship because
    they have all the power; they have all the ability to deal with
    the executive branch, to deal with the Senate, and I think it
    puts the average Member at an enormous disadvantage.
        Second, the individual Members are isolated. Oh, they may
    communicate back and forth, but there is an enormous biological
    power in people being physically together. And that is why I
    want to emphasize, if you study history, going back to the
    Greeks, the Romans, coming up through the Middle Ages, you will
    see why the rise of legislative bodies, whether it was the
    Roman Senate or it was the British Parliament, why these
    institutions always involve people coming into a room, meeting
    with each other, bonding, sharing ideas, and it is a very
    simple thing.
        I think, third, the legislation will be less well thought
    through. There is an enormous power to the legislative process
    as it improves, as different Members bring in ideas, as
    different people find things that are wrong. That process
    really matters, and the legislative product gets to be
    dramatically better the more there is a systemic legislative
    process. And I think that the natural pattern of having remote
    voting will be to dramatically weaken that process.
        Lastly, I guess, I want to challenge what I sense is an
    absurd level of fear. Because Callista is the Ambassador of the
    Vatican, I have been living in Rome. We have lived through the
    pandemic. Italy closed down. There was a crisis comparable to
    New York City. But I am very worried by the level of fear that
    I sense in the United States and this sense of danger.
        You know, we used to say--we used to sing, ``We are the
    land of the brave and the home of the free.'' I sense we are
    beginning to be the land of the timid and the home of the
    fearful. And I recently wrote Franklin Delano Roosevelt's great
    admonition that we have nothing to fear but fear itself.
        I think the idea that politicians are too precious to come
    together at a time--as you pointed out, Chairperson Lofgren,
    truck drivers, people who run grocery stores, people who work
    in restaurants, the number of Americans every day who are going
    about their business--you can be prudent. You can wear masks.
    You can have social distancing. But this idea that the current
    challenge leads us into a radical disruption of 3,000 years of
    legislative history I think is a very, very sad commentary on
    the American system. Politicians are not more important than
    truck drivers. They are not more important than nurses, or they
    are not more important than, frankly, people who work in a
    restaurant or at a Walmart or at a grocery store.
        So I wish you would drop this sense of panic, relax, figure
    out how to get together in a healthy way and show the country
    by example that we can, in fact, function even under this
    challenge. Thank you for giving me a couple seconds more than
    my time.
        [The statement of Mr. Gingrich follows:]
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        The Chairperson. Thank you, Mr. Gingrich.
        We will now hear from Bill Crowell.
        Mr. Crowell, you are recognized for your testimony. You
    need to unmute your microphone.

                      STATEMENT OF WILLIAM CROWELL

        Mr. Crowell. Thank you very much, Chairperson Lofgren. It
    is a pleasure to be with the Committee, and I appreciate the
    opportunity. My name is Bill Crowell, and I am testifying today
    as a private citizen and not on behalf of any entity.
        I think that it is reasonable to parse the challenges
    associated with remote voting into four major categories: The
    first, videoconferencing systems with the right functionality
    and superiority. The second, voting systems with verification
    of the identity of the Members and of their votes and with the
    functionality required to carry out your legal obligations.
    Technical issues, such as connectivity, operating capacity,
    certification of the security of the system, and secure end-to-
    end encryption and multifactor authentication, and secure
    storage of all relevant documents and records, is the third
    item. And the last is adequate funding to acquire, maintain,
    and operate and certify the systems.
        There are many videoconferencing systems. They vary widely
    in their features and functions as well as the level of
    security. Only a few have end-to-end encryption, and none are
    certified for classified information unless operated in a
    secure facility.
        Many of them were either developed outside the United
    States or have considerable operating support coming from
    outside the United States, which raises extra concerns about
    their security and their reliability.
        Also, since COVID-19 has significantly increased the use of
    videoconferencing, a number of these systems have been
    subjected to successful cyber attacks, underscoring the lack of
    cyber resilience of this method of staying connected.
        With regard to voting systems during the COVID-19 pandemic,
    at least 24 State legislative bodies have embraced various
    approaches to both remote voting and remote hearings. No common
    approaches or standards have been adopted, although there has
    been wide use of a number of videoconferencing systems as a
    means of conducting remote hearings and the use of video
    streaming over the internet to provide for public participation
    and transparency.
        A wide variety of techniques have been used as voting
    platforms. It is my belief that the most attractive solution
    for remote voting is a purpose-built software package that
    incorporates all of the attributes associated with
    congressional process, including committee management, remote
    hearings, document and bill markup, archiving, public access to
    the proceedings, and recorded votes, and of course, an easy-to-
    use remote voting process.
        There are several technical issues that also can limit or
    interfere with the success of our remote voting system. First
    on that list is the fact that Members and staff do not use the
    same devices either in their districts or on the road. In
    addition, the internet service providers in their districts
    provide differing levels of performance.
        Security issues are the most prevalent and pervasive
    technical issue in this digital age. Specifically, multifactor
    authentication, end-to-end encryption, and verification or
    audit of all the votes, documents, and proceedings must not
    only be present in the solution but be accredited or certified
    to work as specified.
        Today, cyber attacks are an hourly and daily fact, and many
    of them are successful against well-designed but flawed product
    implementation or use. These attacks have been commonplace.
    They are carried out by nation-states, criminals, hacktivists,
    as well as hackers just seeking the thrill of a successful
    attack. A remote voting system must be resilient against all of
    these bad actors, particularly nation-states who are seeking to
    disrupt our democratic processes.
        Last but not least of the four categories is providing
    sufficient funding to acquire and certify services.
        In conclusion, I believe there are many factors that can
    impede successful deployment operation of remote voting
    solution in the House, but I also think that many of these can
    be mitigated. I hope that my parsing of this problem is useful
    in your framing of an approach that maximizes the functionality
    needed to make this effort successful.
        And thank you very much for the opportunity to provide a
    perspective on this important topic. I look forward to
    answering your questions.
        [The statement of Mr. Crowell follows:]
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        The Chairperson. Thank you very much.
        I will now recognize Mr. Green for his testimony.
        Mr. Green, you are welcome to testify.

                         STATEMENT OF JON GREEN

        Mr. Green. Thank you. Chairperson Lofgren and Ranking
    Member Davis and Members of the Committee, thank you for
    inviting me to testify today as you explore the feasibility and
    security of remote voting for House Members.
        While recognizing that this institution is founded on in-
    person engagement and voting environments, the current pandemic
    has made it entirely reasonable to consider technology that
    allows for secure remote voting.
        I have spent the past 17 years working for Aruba, a part of
    Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and for the past 10 years, I have
    worked closely with our U.S. and allied partner government
    customers on secure network and remote access solutions. I hope
    that experience will help provide relevant information on
    today's topic.
        Before beginning my formal testimony, I want to thank
    Chairperson Lofgren for her representation of San Jose and
    Silicon Valley for the past 25 years. HPE and the larger
    technology community in the Valley are grateful for her
    consistent support and leadership.
        Let me assure you that you are not alone in trying to adapt
    to the new world of work-from-home orders. Since this pandemic
    began, we have received thousands of inquiries from our
    Enterprise customers seeking solutions to enable secure remote
    working. It is fair so say that very few of them envisioned a
    world where 100 percent of their workforce would suddenly be
    working from home.
        Such widespread remote working brings with it additional
    challenges. End users without the benefit of on-site IT support
    personnel often become frustrated when their technology doesn't
    work correctly. And without protections provided by IT security
    solutions, users often turn to that which is convenient, such
    as personal email accounts, rather than that which is secure.
    The stakes are very high when it comes to remote voting in the
    House, so it is critical to provide Members a solution that is
    both convenient and secure.
        In the world of information security, we often speak of the
    CIA triad. Not to be confused with the intelligence agency, CIA
    stands for confidentiality, integrity, and availability, the
    three most important aspects of a secure system. Many people
    equate security with confidentiality, but in remote voting, the
    most important principle is actually integrity, the guarantee
    that information is trustworthy, consistent, accurate, and
    originated from the correct person.
        Second in importance is availability. A Member must be able
    to cast a vote during the period that voting is open. We have
    all seen the reports documenting foreign adversary interference
    in U.S. public elections, and we can't for a minute believe
    that adversaries would not also try to interfere in
    congressional voting. For that reason, it is imperative that
    the House implement the highest degree of security possible.
        Fortunately, a model already exists for highly secure
    remote access. Congress does not have to go first. Ten years
    ago, the National Security Agency introduced a program known as
    Commercial Solutions for Classified, which has been widely
    adopted by the DOD, the intelligence community, law
    enforcement, and others to connect classified systems and
    devices over untrusted networks using commercial off-the-shelf
    IT products. The same architecture has been also deployed for
    unclassified systems when organizations have needed to adopt
    the best security available. Congress can dispense with months
    of security analysis by adopting an existing, proven
    architecture.
        Overall, I believe we need to focus on four key principles
    to ensure a successful remote voting program: First, as
    previously mentioned, secure remote network connectivity should
    be provided following the NSA Commercial Solutions for
    Classified architecture. This ensures that Members of Congress
    are not connecting directly to malicious or compromised
    networks.
        Second, dedicated voting devices should be issued to each
    Member to be used only for the purpose of voting. These could
    take the form of laptops, tablets, or smartphones with a simple
    application showing buttons labeled yes, no, and present.
        Third, multifactor authentication would be mandatory for
    such a solution. It is critical to ensure that the Member and
    only the Member is the person casting a vote. Multifactor
    authentication is already widely used by the Federal Government
    and is a well-understood technology.
        And, fourth, a manual system of vote verification is
    required. The Member needs a way to verify that the correct
    vote was registered in real time in a system that is visible to
    all. This could be as simple as monitoring the vote on C-SPAN.
        My remaining caution to you is to focus on availability. We
    can solve for integrity and confidentiality, but availability
    is often overlooked. Systems deployed today that use public
    internet rely on users being lost in a crowd, their internet
    traffic appearing indistinguishable from others.
        If an adversary were able to pinpoint the internet location
    of each Congressional Member, then targeted denial-of-service
    attacks could prevent specific Members from casting their
    votes. To counter this threat, backup systems of voting must
    remain available and time limits on voting windows may need to
    be relaxed. As skilled as we are today at engineering reliable
    networks, the best backup systems are often low tech.
        In summary, I believe that should you decide to move
    forward, remote voting is technically feasible, can be enabled
    for a reasonable cost, and can be done with an appropriately
    high level of security.
        Thank you again for the opportunity to offer testimony. I
    look forward to answering any questions you may have.
        [The statement of Mr. Green follows:]
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        The Chairperson. Thank you very much for that interesting
    testimony.
        Dr. Rivest, you are now recognized for your testimony.

                     STATEMENT OF RONALD L. RIVEST

        Mr. Rivest. Thank you. Chairperson Lofgren, Ranking Member
    Davis, and Members of the Committee, my name is Ron Rivest. I
    thank you for inviting me to testify regarding the feasibility
    of using technology for conducting remote voting in the House.
    My bottom line is that such remote voting is feasible and can
    be made adequately secure.
        I will skip a few paragraphs of my testimony since my bio
    has already been read. I just note that I have worked for over
    two decades on voting system security. And I speak here only
    about the security aspects of the remote voting, not about the
    appropriateness of remote voting for the House. That question
    is beyond my pay grade.
        I see that the House, under House Resolution 965, is
    already using proxy voting for remote voting. That resolution
    authorizes examination of ways to vote remotely in a secure
    manner, hence today's hearing.
        As noted, I think the House is in a good position. There
    are indeed suitable secure voting technologies available. The
    most important reason why that is true is that the House votes
    are not secret. Voting in the House is not based on secret
    ballots. That makes all the difference, as manipulation or
    alteration of votes can be detected and corrected.
        For the record, I note that, in the U.S., secret ballot
    voting was first implemented in Massachusetts in 1888. However,
    implementing secure secret ballot remote voting is still beyond
    the state of the art.
        Back to nonsecret voting, designing a secure voting system
    requires, first of all, a clear statement of the security
    objectives. A system can't be said to be secure if there is no
    specification of what security should mean for that system.
        What are the baseline voting system security requirements?
    Here are four: Only eligible voters can vote and each at most
    once. Votes are cast as intended. Votes are collected as cast.
    And votes are counted as collected. Each property should not
    only be true but be verifiably true. Counting, as noted,
    tabulation, is not an issue since nonsecret ballots can be
    posted publicly and the tally then verified by anyone.
        One recommended principle for achieving voting system
    security is that of software independence, a notion developed
    by John Wack of NIST and myself. This principle basically says
    that you never want to be in a position where you have to say,
    well, the result must be right because the computer says so. In
    other words, the election outcomes must be auditable.
        Here is a sketch of a simple architectural approach for
    secure remote nonsecret voting to illustrate. There is a public
    website where all cast votes are posted. Each Congressperson
    composes his or her vote, digitally signs it, and sends the
    resulting digitally signed ballot for posting on the public
    website. Many digital signature schemes are available. NIST has
    developed digital signature standards. Digital signatures are
    now implemented in every browser. One approach uses the RSA
    public-key cryptosystem.
        A nice thing about digital signatures is that the signature
    on a digitally signed document, such as a ballot, is verifiable
    by anyone. I note that a digital signature is not just a cut-
    and-paste image of a handwritten signature; it is a
    mathematical function of the message being signed and secret
    information specific to the signer.
        Digitally signed ballots can be authenticated using public
    information, both as to the origin, who the voter is, and as to
    the content, what the ballot says. Vote manipulations are not
    possible, as forging digital signatures is not feasible. The
    most an adversary can do is to delete or duplicate votes. An
    adversary can conceivably delete or duplicate votes even now
    with proxy voting. If a Congressperson can't submit a ballot,
    they can't vote.
        Detection and correction mechanisms can work for voting
    with digitally signed ballots much as they work for proxy
    voting. It is important to note that voters, in this case
    Congresspeople, can check or audit their votes as correctly
    recorded on the public website. Missing votes can be restored.
    This should be checked. This is important.
        An approach sketched here bears many similarities to your
    current proxy voting procedures. The public website becomes the
    proxy for those voting remotely. Indeed, such a system should
    provide a smooth and secure extension of your current proxy
    voting procedures, which need not be abandoned. This sketch is
    intended only to show that it is possible to use technology to
    do remote, nonsecret voting in a secure manner. Many other
    approaches are possible.
        This concludes my testimony. I would be happy to answer any
    questions you may have.
        [The statement of Mr. Rivest follows:]
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        The Chairperson. Thank you very, very much.
        I would now like to ask Dr. Rubin to give us his testimony.

                        STATEMENT OF AVIEL RUBIN

        Mr. Rubin. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairperson Lofgren,
    Ranking Member Davis--or I should actually say, for some of
    you, it is good morning, right--and Members of the Committee.
    Thank you for inviting me to participate in today's hearing. My
    name is Avi Rubin, and I am a professor of computer science at
    Johns Hopkins University. I am also technical director of our
    Information Security Institute. I have held these positions for
    the last 17 years. And prior to that, I was a cybersecurity
    researcher for 9 years at AT&T Labs and Bellcore.
        For 10 years my research focused on election security, and
    I was director of the National Science Foundation ACCURATE
    Center for secure elections. I was also an election judge in
    Maryland, and I worked six elections as an election judge.
        I have been asked to comment on the technical feasibility
    of building a system for House Members to vote remotely. I will
    not be addressing the political question of whether the House
    should employ it, just focusing on technical issues relating to
    feasibility and security.
        Remote voting for House Members is very different from
    remote internet voting where citizens elect their political
    leaders, which I strongly oppose for security reasons. What
    makes internet voting difficult is the secret ballot
    requirement. The House Members' votes are not anonymous, and
    that makes all of the difference.
        I consider important features of a system for remote voting
    by House Members: The features are that the votes are cast over
    the internet on a mobile device or computer or even a dedicated
    device. The votes are displayed as they are cast on a virtual
    board simulating the large board in the House Chamber that
    shows the votes. The public has access to the virtual board and
    can see how Members voted. And the system needs to work in real
    time because some procedural votes lead to activity based on
    the results of those votes right away. So a system that detects
    errors days later would not be that useful.
        Without the secrecy requirement, I believe that it is
    possible to design, build, and deploy a reasonably safe and
    secure remote voting capability for House Members that meets
    these requirements, provided that certain procedures are
    followed.
        When considering the security of a system, the first step
    is to develop a threat model. Next, you want to rank the
    threats in order of severity, and then security designers will
    attempt to address those threats.
        For House Members to vote remotely, here are examples of
    some of the threats. One would be an attacker compromising a
    Member's device, whether it is a phone or a tablet or computer,
    and forging votes on behalf of that Member.
        Another threat might be that an attacker forges votes for a
    Member without even compromising their device. Let's look at
    another threat. An attacker could compromise a back-end system
    and cause the votes to be tabulated incorrectly. And, finally,
    a targeted denial-of-service attack, which was already
    mentioned, against a Member's network right when they are
    trying to vote that prevents them from being able to vote.
        Well, against the forged votes and the disruption of the
    tallies, we can address those with standard security practices.
    These can include encrypted and authenticated communication
    lines, multifactor authentication, and checks.
        For example, imagine that a staffer for a Member registers
    their mobile device with the system and then whenever the
    staffer votes--I am sorry--whenever the Member votes, that
    staffer receives a notification on their phone saying the
    Member has voted and here is how they voted, and that would be
    one check to make sure that the votes were being cast the way
    that the staffer knew that the Member could cast the votes.
    There are many other such safeguards that a designer of a
    system could put into place.
        Now, addressing the denial-of-service attacks is more
    challenging, but this can be addressed with backup
    communication capabilities, including voice calls, and in the
    worst case, alarms can be raised. The key is that any security
    issues can be detected and addressed in a system such as this.
        So, in conclusion, technology is available today to make it
    possible for Members to vote on bills remotely over the
    internet. However, care must be taken to employ proper security
    design procedures and audit to ensure that tampering is not
    occurring, and backup procedures should be considered in the
    event that the system is unavailable at a critical time.
        So I am happy to answer any questions during the Q/A
    portion of the hearing, and thank you very much.
        [The statement of Mr. Rubin follows:]
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        The Chairperson. Thank you very much.
        Our last testimony will be from Dr. Wagner.
        We are eager to hear your comments.

                       STATEMENT OF DAVID WAGNER

        Mr. Wagner. Chairperson Lofgren, Ranking Member Davis, and
    Committee Members, thank you for the opportunity to participate
    in this hearing today. I am a professor of computer science at
    the University of California Berkeley. I have published more
    than 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers on computer security,
    and I have worked on the security of elections for over 15
    years.
        I have one message for you today: It is technologically
    feasible for the House to vote remotely if you decide that
    voting remotely is in the public interest. There are risks, but
    my assessment is that the technical risks can be mitigated.
        If Members of the House can vote on bills over the
    internet, a natural concern is that hackers might attack your
    computers and try to tamper with the votes. Another concern is
    that technical issues might prevent Members from casting their
    vote or cause votes to be recorded inaccurately. These are
    serious risks, but I believe these risks can be addressed
    through a combination of people, process, and technology.
        I would like to walk you through three possible models you
    could consider for remote voting. One way you could vote online
    would be for the House to develop its own app. You have heard
    how this could work. Each Member could cast their vote from an
    app on their phone with a public vote board showing the votes
    received in real time. I had suggested each Member have one of
    their staff crosscheck that the vote was recorded correctly.
    Maybe party whips could help with that too.
        And I discuss in my written statement some security
    measures that I think would be appropriate for this approach.
    The primary disadvantage of developing your own app is that it
    might take many months or even years to develop and deploy your
    own solution.
        A second option would be to buy a commercially available
    system for voting online. A third option would be to use remote
    videoconferencing. To record their vote, a Member could make a
    video call to the Office of the Clerk, and the Clerk's staff
    could verify the Member's face and voice and record their vote.
        I outline in my written statement ways that you could
    harden this approach against hacking. The primary advantage of
    a videoconferencing approach is that it could be deployed
    rapidly using existing tools.
        Regardless of which model you adopt, I would like to
    propose four principles that I think would support security for
    voting in the House. First, I suggest that you provide a way
    for Members to check that their votes were recorded correctly,
    and you encourage everyone to do this. This provides a powerful
    backstop in the event of technical problems.
        If you make it easy for Members and their staff to verify
    that their vote was recorded correctly, then any technical
    issues or hacking can be detected and corrected. Any system can
    potentially be hacked, but well-designed ones anticipate this
    and provide a way to detect it and correct the problem.
        Second, I think it will be important to consider the
    policies and processes that govern remote voting. You might
    consider how Members can report any discrepancies in how their
    vote was recorded and have them corrected. You might also
    consider what fallback procedures would be available if the
    Member is unable to vote due to technical issues and the
    timeline for doing so.
        Third, you might consider selecting a partner with
    cybersecurity expertise. When you buy a house, you hire a
    professional inspector to check for any problems. And the same
    applies here. It might be helpful to have security experts on
    tap to help, and there are a number of government organizations
    that might be available to help with that.
        Fourth, I suggest following good cybersecurity practices,
    such as use of two-factor authentication, end-to-end
    encryption, and providing Members with hardened devices to vote
    from.
        In summary, I believe technology can enable the House to
    vote remotely in a reasonably safe way if you decide that it
    would be appropriate to do so. Thank you.
        [The statement of Mr. Wagner follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        The Chairperson. Thank you very much, Dr. Wagner.
        And thanks to all of the witnesses for their very
    informative testimony.
        We now have an opportunity to ask questions of our
    witnesses for five minutes. I would note that Mr. Gingrich has
    previously advised us that he has a hard stop in about 25
    minutes. So I just wanted members to know that if they have
    questions for Mr. Gingrich.
        Mr. Gingrich. Well, actually, Chairperson, this is so
    interesting; I will stay. I will just blow off my----
        The Chairperson. Okay. Good. Very good. Very good.
        Mr. Gingrich. Thank you.
        The Chairperson. I am going to turn to the Ranking Member
    first to recognize him for his five minutes of questions. Mr.
    Davis.
        Mr. Davis of Illinois. Thank you, Madam Chairperson.
        And thank you to all the witnesses. I appreciate the
    opportunity to talk about technology and talk about the overall
    process of remote voting possibly existing in the House.
        Mr. Speaker, you touched on this in your testimony, but can
    you elaborate further on how you see remote voting as possibly
    centralizing power in the Speaker's Office?
        Mr. Gingrich. I will be glad to. And let me say, I was very
    impressed with the witnesses, and I have no doubt that if the
    House decides it is wise, that you can develop a very solid
    system. And I concur with the Clerk, Cheryl Johnson, that she
    could easily, I think, develop and guarantee the integrity of
    that kind of a system. So I think that is an important frame of
    this.
        The challenge you have is basically how humans operate. As
    you know, you build teams by being together long enough to know
    each other. You build teams by working out and solving problems
    together.
        I think you have to look at, not just the first week or the
    first month, but if you start down a road where you are saying
    that being distant, not interacting biologically in the same
    room, is an acceptable pattern, then I think you begin to set
    up a post-legislative body that is something we have never seen
    before.
        Legislative bodies historically aren't just about voting;
    they are about building a collective understanding and a
    collective knowledge, and, at times, in taking on Presidents or
    taking on kings, they are about people who know each other well
    enough to have courage in situations of enormous danger.
        So, as a historian, I worry about the wisdom half of this.
    As a citizen, I have no doubt, if you decide it is the way to
    go, you have brilliant people today who are testifying, and
    collectively, they could produce a--they can guarantee the
    technology, but I am not sure they can guarantee the historical
    and sociological side effects.
        Mr. Davis of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I agree with you. We
    are the United States of America. If there is anything that
    needs to be built in this globe, we can make sure that happens,
    and the great people who are here today likely could do that.
    But I agree with you. I still believe it impacts what Congress
    looks like over the next generation.
        Matter of fact, I am on the Committee to Modernize
    Congress, Select Committee to Modernize Congress. Many of our
    recommendations have been built around how we ought to get
    together more, talk more. That is how we begin to legislate.
        But another important process is oversight. Now, you
    changed the oversight process within the House when you got rid
    of proxy voting that the committee chairs had before you were
    Speaker. Did that empower more Member input, and what kind of
    oversight issues do you think remote voting would give to a
    legislative branch when dealing with the executive branch?
        Mr. Gingrich. Look, I think oversight is unbelievably
    important. I don't think we do enough of it, and I don't think
    we develop enough expertise in it. And, again, I would just
    say, a lot of these topics, whether it is healthcare or
    national security or you name it, they require years of
    learning. Members who spend years working on a particular area
    very often know more than the executive branch people that they
    are interrogating.
        So I think it is very important. We eliminated proxy voting
    because what was happening was the chairman would walk in and
    they would have 15 votes in their pocket. Now, those people
    didn't sit through the hearing. They didn't ask any questions.
    Well, when the time came to vote, even if you had had all your
    people there on some of these committees where they were
    stacked pretty intensely, the chairman just won. There was
    almost no reason to go. So that was a big factor in why we went
    there.
        I think our hope was that it would get more Member
    involvement, more Member engagement, and more Member learning.
    And as a result, all 435 players could be involved, not just a
    handful. That was our hope anyway.
        Mr. Davis of Illinois. We appreciate you doing that. I do
    believe it has made the House work better. We do, as I know the
    Members of this Committee have tremendous input. And I also
    want to thank you for the transformation that you made to the
    House when you took over as Speaker to move the House from a
    patronage machine of decades before to a more professional
    organization with our Chief Administrative Officer and making
    sure that politics was put out of that process as much as
    possible in a political House that we work in.
        So I appreciate your experience, appreciate your comments.
    And I will go ahead and yield back, and thanks for taking the
    time today.
        The Chairperson. The gentleman yields back.
        I would now turn to the other Davis on our Committee, the
    gentlelady from California, Susan Davis, for five minutes.
        Mrs. Davis of California. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
        I appreciate all of our witnesses here today.
        And I wanted to start with Clerk Johnson, if I might.
        And, Clerk Johnson, I especially wanted to thank you for
    everything that you and your staff have been doing to make
    voting and legislative processes possible during this difficult
    time of the pandemic.
        And we need to remember: we are in a national emergency
    here. We are not just talking about this because we think that,
    you know, maybe some people would like to do it this way. There
    is a reason for that, and it is a matter of life and death. And
    for some of our families, quite honestly, it is a matter of
    life and death. So being safe is very, very important.
        I wanted to just acknowledge your effort, Clerk Johnson, to
    make Congress work remotely requires remote voting, of course,
    that we have been talking about, but also remote legislative
    processes, including bill introduction and co-sponsorship. And
    I know that you have worked hard on that, creating electronic
    signatures.
        I want to thank you as well for setting up the email system
    for bills and sponsorships, and I hope we could continue to
    work together on that. And you have also been active in setting
    up some of the small group voting and proxy voting that is also
    smart and safe for all of us.
        I am sure you know and probably the one issue that Members
    would talk about that is a concern of theirs, especially when
    they are there and voting right now, again, because of COVID,
    is being able to vote quickly, get on and off the floor, and
    perhaps find ways of saving time in between. And I wonder
    whether you think that there are some more efficient ways of
    doing that? I want to turn to the Clerk for that.
        The Chairperson. The Clerk needs to unmute her microphone
    before she answers.
        Ms. Johnson. Yes.
        Mrs. Davis of California. Thank you.
        Ms. Johnson. In looking at the process that is currently in
    place, I certainly think it is very efficient with the proxy
    voting. Members are able to come in, and if they are holding
    proxies for other Members, they announce those proxies on the
    floor.
        At the same time, the tally clerk holds a binder that has a
    copy of the proxies to make certain that it is reliable and
    transparent, and Members are able to move on and off of the
    floor very, very efficiently.
        A vote normally takes about 45 minutes, because they are
    sequential. Members come in probably 15 at a time. They
    exercise social distancing. And, as I said, we have not had any
    incidents to date.
        Mrs. Davis of California. If I may just add quickly, I
    think the timing in between the votes, and for some of us
    walking back and forth to offices, it is great. We get more
    steps in, I guess you could say that.
        But I also just wanted to see that if there are some ways
    that people have suggested shortening some of the time, and
    maybe that is something that we could all continue to talk
    about.
        But I know that that is the concern that people have
    expressed, because it kind of forces people to hang out a
    little bit, and that is not something that we know is
    necessarily in the best interest of all of us doing that and
    keeping people safe.
        I wanted to turn quickly, because several of our witnesses
    have talked about this, and I think it is really an interesting
    concept. How could remote voting be corrupted given that it is
    not a secret ballot?
        And I know that Dr. Rubin has talked about that, Dr. Rivest
    as well.
        Are we talking about corruption here? Or is it that we want
    to be sure that Members have the ability very, very quickly to
    be able to check and see if their votes are correct?
        It is not a secret system. So the whole world should be
    able to watch this with us and to be sure that we are correct.
        And I ask others on the panel to respond to that.
        Dr. Rivest.
        Mr. Crowell. Well, I would just----
        Mr. Rivest. I would be happy to speak to that.
        Sure, yes, you are absolutely right, you hit the nail on
    the head with the key requirement, which is that the voters
    need to be--the Congress people who are voting need to be able
    to check that their ballot is correctly reported and posted.
        There may be corruption on the way between inside the
    voter's mobile device and their laptop, whatever they are
    using. There may be corruption on the routes to the posting.
    But any of those things can be detected and corrected as long
    as there is a way for the voter to check that the vote was
    received as intended and posted correctly.
        So I think that is exactly right, there are possibilities
    for corruption, but as long as you have a detection and
    correction mechanism, such as you have talked about here, such
    as we have all talked about, this can work well.
        Mrs. Davis of California. Thank you.
        The Chairperson. Mr. Crowell, you were going to say
    something.
        Mr. Crowell. Yeah. I wanted to add to that list disruption,
    which I think is a very big issue and will have to be
    addressed, as Dr. Rivest and Dr. Rubin mentioned earlier.
    Disruption is occurring all the time in the internet, and we
    have to deal with it.
        The Chairperson. Very good. Thank you so much.
        I would now like to turn to the gentleman from North
    Carolina, Mr. Walker, for his questions.
        Mr. Walker. Thank you, Madam Chair.
        Speaker Gingrich, you touched on how working together and
    hearing different perspectives will be greatly diminished with
    Members not physically being in D.C.
        I know some of my personal work has been bipartisan. Some
    of those relationships and some of the development on policies,
    those conversations happen on the House floor.
        I can think of two instances during a motion to recommit
    where colleagues of mine did change their votes going on to the
    floor after hearing the debate. In fact, there is a verse in
    Proverbs in the original Hebrew that states: The one who states
    his case first seems right until the other comes along and
    examines him.
        I don't look at this as a technological debate. I look at
    this as a procedural debate, a historical debate, a debate of
    what is best for the American people.
        Would you mind expanding on how this remote voting will
    have a potential corrosive impact on the legislative process?
        Mr. Gingrich. Well, thank you for that question,
    Congressman Walker.
        Look, I approach this from two different perspectives. One
    is, somebody who did serve 20 years in the House. And, for
    example, when I was Speaker most of our major bills had huge
    bipartisan majorities and they did so because we listened to
    each other.
        And on occasion we got into fights. We had one effort, to
    reform welfare, that got vetoed. We had to sit back down, talk
    it through. By the time we were done, literally half the
    Democrats voted with us. It was 101-101 in the caucus. And that
    wouldn't have happened if we weren't able to listen to each
    other.
        I can also tell you that I am a big fan of congressional
    delegation trips, because you get away from your staff, you get
    away from your constituents, you get away from lobbyists. You
    are with the other Members for 3, 4, 5, 6 days, learning
    together, experiencing together, talking together.
        So one is my own personal experience biologically having
    done it.
        The other is my experience as a historian, that when you
    study all of these great demands that involve freedom, if you
    look at the proceedings leading up to the English civil war,
    where the Parliament organized itself against King Charles I,
    if you look at the rebellion against Cromwell, who had become a
    dictator at the end of that civil war, if you look at why the
    Founding Fathers--remember, all these Founding Fathers were
    professional politicians. They had all served in legislatures.
    They were colonial legislatures, but they were real, and they
    had all negotiated.
        And so they believed that the legislative branch was so
    important that they made it the number one thing in the
    Constitution. But in their experience, the legislative branch,
    for example, for Washington and others, meant you rode down to
    Williamsburg. You were there for 6 or 8 weeks. You stayed
    together, you ate together, you talked together.
        Constitutional Convention, 55 days without a break, all of
    it in secret. Talking together, worrying, negotiating,
    thinking. Finally, at one point having a day of prayer, because
    they had gotten deadlocked.
        I think humans learn from each other, and when you start
    trying to replace humans with a mechanical interface or an
    electronic interface you rapidly degrade the long-term wisdom
    of the collective group.
        Mr. Walker. I certainly agree. All over the country right
    now we are trying to bring people together. In a couple of
    weeks, we will have 200 pastors coming together from all of our
    communities to begin conversations to talk about how we resolve
    issues. It would be impossible to do that remotely.
        There is also another aspect of this. What kind of message
    does this send to the American people when Members of Congress
    can just stay at home and push a button or call in or video
    conference while our other essential workers are still showing
    up? My wife is a trauma one nurse specialist practitioner. She
    has to show up every day.
        Would you address that as well?
        Mr. Gingrich. I am deeply concerned by the level of panic
    that the American news media has created. I don't see it here
    in Europe. I don't see it anywhere else around the world. And I
    think that it is almost entirely media driven.
        Yes, this is a problem, but we have dealt with a lot of
    other health problems before and I think that we can deal with
    this one.
        And I think, as a populist, as somebody whose father served
    27 years in the Army, came out with no money, look, I find the
    idea of the political class being too precious to take the risk
    of getting together, I find that goes against everything in the
    American system. And I find it deeply offensive to think that
    the politicians think that they are more valuable than a truck
    driver or a worker at In-N-Out in Los Angeles.
        Mr. Walker. Thank you. Right on time, five minutes. Thank
    you, Mr. Speaker. It is a pleasure to see you today.
        I yield back.
        The Chairperson. At this point I would like to recognize
    the other gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Butterfield, for
    his questions.
        Mr. Butterfield. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
        And it is good to see all of my colleagues today. I hope
    and pray that all of you are well.
        Let me also thank our witnesses for your testimony.
        I have been listening very carefully, Madam Chair, to the
    various witnesses today, and I was really struck when Mr.
    Gingrich suggested that we are acting in a sense of panic that
    the news media has created. And I want to respectfully dispute
    that premise.
        I suggest today that Democrats are engaged in what I would
    like to call strategic planning. That is to protect this
    institution if rates of infection continue to increase.
        Protecting the Members if assembling on the floor is
    infectious, that is our goal. It is not to create any panic. It
    is simply to protect the Members if assembling on the House
    floor becomes infectious.
        I will note that there was a press conference last week in
    front of the Capitol and one of our beloved Members from
    Virginia contracted the coronavirus while right here on the
    Capitol Grounds.
        And so we are just trying to be proactive and to look
    forward and to do some strategic planning.
        I was in a meeting the other day, a virtual meeting, with
    two of the leading epidemiologists in the world, and what those
    two gentlemen told us was that COVID is winning--COVID is
    winning.
        If States don't require extraordinary measures, the
    infection rates could reach as much as 50 percent by the end of
    the year.
        I hope my colleagues are not surprised by that. I hope you
    agree with that assessment. But if the rates of infection
    continue on the same course that we are seeing now, it could
    rise to 50 percent this year.
        And so as my colleague, Susan Davis, said a moment ago,
    this is a national emergency and it could be a matter of life
    and death.
        Let me just turn my first question to the clerk.
        And thank you, Ms. Johnson, for your incredible work in all
    that you do for all of us in the House.
        At any given time under normal circumstances, Ms. Johnson,
    how many people are on the floor? And that would be Members and
    Members' staff and the support personnel, including the Capitol
    Police and the sergeant at arms and the personnel from your
    office. Collectively, how many people under normal conditions
    are on the floor?
        Ms. Johnson. Approximately 20 persons, and that is clerk
    staff, as well as staff of the parliamentarian and Speaker's
    leadership staff as well, both Democrat and Republican. But
    with the Clerk's Office, we have the bill clerk, the reading
    clerk----
        Mr. Butterfield. But put it all together, including the
    Members, including the Capitol Police, in the aggregate, how
    many people, 500 perhaps?
        Ms. Johnson. Oh, if we include everyone on the floor at one
    time, it is well over 500. It is probably more like 550.
        Mr. Butterfield. And so while I think it is wonderful to
    have 500 people on the floor so that we can talk with each
    other and plan our votes in the middle of a motion to recommit
    and all of that, I think we have to look at extraordinary
    circumstances.
        We do not need 500 people on the floor at one time. We
    don't need 50 people on the floor at one time. And so thank you
    for that.
        It occurs to me that one of the most straightforward ways
    to vote remotely might be to do it by video conference in which
    the Member would simply tell a vote clerk how they wish to
    vote.
        I know our friends over in the other body, they vote by a
    roll call, but it is an in-person roll call. And I am thinking
    perhaps about an electronic teleconference roll call.
        Would that be practical?
        Ms. Johnson. It would be technically feasible. We would
    just have to make certain that it is reliable. But it certainly
    would be practical.
        Mr. Butterfield. And finally, in a remote voting scenario,
    do you think it would be beneficial to have votes to be public
    the moment the votes are cast?
        And as we all know, the public does not know how we vote
    instantaneously. The Members know because we can look up at the
    board, but the public does not know for a few minutes until
    your office is able to post it on the internet.
        But do you have a system in mind whereby the public would
    immediately know how a Member of Congress voted on legislation?
        Ms. Johnson. I think that involves variables. I don't have
    a system in mind, but we could probably have such a system.
    But, no, I don't have one in mind.
        Mr. Butterfield. But that would be beneficial, I take it,
    if the public could instantly know how a Member voted?
        Ms. Johnson. Transparency is always beneficial, I agree.
        Mr. Butterfield. Thank you, Ms. Johnson.
        Thank you, Madam Chairman.
        The Chairperson. Thank you very much.
        I would now like to turn to the gentleman from Georgia, Mr.
    Loudermilk, for his questions.
        Mr. Loudermilk. Thank you, Madam Chair. Appreciate it.
        I apologize for my voice. Believe it or not, there are
    other sicknesses other than COVID out there. And I came down
    with the good old common cold this week and I totally lost my
    voice yesterday.
        The Chairperson. I am sorry.
        Mr. Loudermilk. But it is coming back. It isn't COVID
    because of a flight I took on Air Force One a few days ago. I
    was tested.
        And so I know that that kind of plays into, I think, what
    Speaker Gingrich was talking about, it is almost like today if
    anybody gets a cold, they are all of a sudden just scared to
    death that they have COVID. And so we have to keep things in
    perspective.
        I think the question that we should be asking here today,
    and several of our witnesses have alluded to this, the question
    isn't whether or not this could technically be done, it is
    whether we should be doing this.
        And I think one key indicator to whether we should be doing
    this or not is the amount of time that we have talked about
    security on here today. That ought to be the first indicator,
    that ought to raise a red flag.
        I spent 30 years in the technology sector and one of the
    things I can tell you, there is an old adage that basically
    said, the question isn't if you are going to be hacked, but it
    is when.
        And I know that we can build systems that will be secure
    enough to do this, but also those systems are only as good as
    you maintain them continually. And it would create an
    inordinate amount of work to continue to maintain these,
    because as some of our esteemed panelists have said today, they
    have talked about how high profile this would be, what a target
    we would be, the risk that we would have.
        And obviously we would be one of the highest profile
    targets, not only to cyber criminals, but to foreign entities
    as well. And the amount of effort that we would spend in just
    continuing to stay ahead of the bad guys, I don't know that it
    would be worth implementing a system like this.
        I think we really should be talking about ways to hold
    ourselves accountable to do the jobs we are supposed to be
    doing. I can't remember, I am sure Speaker Gingrich can tell
    us, when was the last time that the House and the Senate
    actually passed appropriations by our own deadline?
        I mean, I think we should spend time on how we hold
    ourselves to do our jobs, not trying to make it easier for us
    not to do our jobs.
        But I think it is important to have the conversation. But
    the most secure way to vote is to walk on the floor with your
    card.
        And I give credit to the system that we have right now. It
    does take longer. It isn't as efficient, because we can't go on
    the floor and vote on four votes at one time. It takes half a
    day or a quarter of a day to vote on one bill because the
    machines are closed. But yet we have got it down to where we
    can do that.
        So anyhow, I think the real question ought to be, is this
    something we should be considering, not if it could be done?
        Speaker Gingrich, good to see you, again. And it took me a
    moment when you said you are in Rome, I had to figure out, were
    you talking about Rome, Georgia, or Rome, Italy? So I think I
    figured that out.
        But you did a lot to reform House processes. I have read
    several books on it. When you became Speaker it was like
    reforming the entire House because of the level of corruption
    that existed at several levels--and including at the time the
    House Administration Committee.
        And one of the things that has been spoken about is that
    you got rid of proxy voting. Why did you get rid of that in the
    committee level and what were the problems it created?
        Mr. Gingrich. Well, let me say first, just for a second,
    that in terms of what Clerk Johnson is dealing with, we
    actually brought in a firm to audit the House. And after about
    9 months they came back and briefed us and said, ``It is
    impossible. Since 1789 the House has never kept records
    accurate enough to be audited.'' But they said, ``If you will
    give us a contract, a year from now we will be able to audit
    the House.'' And that was one of the breakthrough moments that
    led to a much more modern House.
        And the corruption wasn't particularly partisan. It was
    just people had gotten sloppy over a very, very long period.
        I would say, and I draw a distinction here, as I said
    earlier, I have no doubt with the experts you have heard from
    today that you can get to a safe and secure method for remote
    voting.
        The proxy voting issue is a different issue and one which
    does concern me, and that is it centralizes power and actually
    lowers the interest of other Members in participating because
    they are just going to lose the vote. And the chairman of the
    committee or the Speaker of the House or whoever is just going
    to beat them with the names of people who aren't even there,
    have no idea how it has been voted.
        And so for us that was a very frustrating part of being in
    the minority and that is why we changed it when we took over.
    We actually took away from our brand-new chairmen the power
    that their predecessors had and would not let our new chairmen
    use the proxies to dominate their committees.
        Mr. Loudermilk. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
        I mean, there are times that it would be beneficial when I
    have three committee hearings going on at the same time or
    markups and I have to run from one to the other, but that is
    just part of what I signed up to do.
        So thank you. I see I am out of time. And I yield back.
        The Chairperson. Thank you.
        Mr. Raskin has been able to join us from the Rules
    Committee.
        We thank you.
        The gentleman from Maryland is recognized for his five
    minutes.
        Mr. Raskin. Madam Chair, thank you very much. And thanks
    for calling this extremely important meeting at a time when the
    country is in an intensifying crisis with the coronavirus. We
    have 3.3 million cases. We lead the world in case count. We
    lead the world in death count. We have tens of millions of
    people thrown out of work because of this nightmare. And
    several of our States would be in the top five countries in the
    world in terms of increases in the coronavirus if they were
    treated as a country.
        And we know that there are hospitals being maxed out and
    overrun in Florida, in Texas, in Arizona, and throughout a lot
    of the southern part of our country.
        I would not agree with the proposition that using remote
    voting or proxy voting in the context of a national public
    health crisis reduces deliberation. I would think that people
    can engage in robotic, cultish, party-line voting even when
    they are standing on the floor of the House. And I have seen
    many, many people do that.
        And I think people, at the same time, could call in a proxy
    vote or vote remotely, having listened carefully to the
    speeches on TV and having consulted with their colleagues.
        So I just think that that argument has very little force to
    it. There might be other things we can do to promote meaningful
    dialogue and discussion. But I understand the same kinds of
    arguments were made when the House of Representatives first
    moved to use electronic voting in the first place, that somehow
    this would sterilize the process and cut down on interpersonal
    communication and so on.
        So I am more concerned about the arguments that I have
    heard from several people today, phrased rhetorically: What
    kind of message does it send to Americans on the front lines,
    like nurses and doctors and first responders who go to work, if
    there are Members of the House who can't make it and they vote
    from home?
        Does it say something, as Mr. Gingrich said--and I am sorry
    I never had the chance to serve in Congress with Congressman
    Gingrich because he is an interesting guy--but does it say
    something about the preciousness of the political class?
        Well, I don't think so. If anyone wants to really prove his
    manhood in this process or prove your courage or your tenacity,
    go spend a day in a hospital with the nurses and the doctors
    and the frontline providers. And if you can't do that or you
    don't want to do that, listen to them, because they are all
    telling us the same thing: Stay home. Because the hospitals are
    being overrun and the pandemic is out of control. And we have
    people like the President who are not wearing masks and we have
    people who are undermining the public health advice of our
    doctors and our scientists and Dr. Fauci. Stay home if you can
    stay home because this virus is still out of control.
        Now, the House of Representatives, as I think I heard the
    Clerk testify, when we are operating and there is a vote going
    on, can have anywhere between 400, 500, 550 people together on
    the floor.
        My friends, conferences across the country have been
    canceled during this period because they have 500 people coming
    together at hotels. And that is how the virus has spread in a
    number of cases, one infamously in Boston at a conference where
    it just spread like wildfire.
        We basically think we are a regular meeting conference in
    that sense when you look at it from an epidemiological
    perspective.
        So nobody wants to be in this position, and this is not the
    occasion to discuss the incompetence of the national
    government's response to this crisis. Nobody wants to be in
    this situation, but we do have a responsibility to maintain
    continuity of government and the continuity of Congress and to
    make sure that we are acting consistent with public health
    protocols in a safe and in a secure way.
        And so I very much favor the idea of moving forward.
        You know, Madam Chair, if you would permit me one more
    thought. There were people saying, well, this isn't fair to our
    constituents, when we were talking about proxy voting.
        Proxy voting has allowed lots of Members who were sick, and
    we have had a number of Members, both Republicans and
    Democrats, suffer from the coronavirus. We have enabled people
    to participate. We have enabled them to participate if they
    have immunocompromised or vulnerable family members, or other
    people who couldn't go because of travel logistics and couldn't
    make it to Washington. Their constituents had a voice. And I
    know because the Republicans are suing about this.
        A lot of Republicans didn't participate. I think in the
    last vote, there were nine or ten Republicans who didn't
    participate. What does it say to their constituents that they
    would prefer to make some kind of vain moral gesture by not
    voting and not having their own constituents represented than
    to participate in a system which allows everyone to be heard?
        I yield back. Thank you.
        The Chairperson. The gentleman yields back.
        I would now like to turn to the gentlelady from Ohio, Ms.
    Fudge, for her five minutes of questioning.
        Is Marcia still with us? Perhaps not.
        Then we will go to Mr. Aguilar.
        Mr. Aguilar. Thank you, Madam Chair.
        And appreciate the panel and the panelists for being here.
        Just off of what Mr. Raskin mentioned, too, one of the
    other roles I play is chief deputy whip of our caucus. And I
    have a number of conversations with colleagues about it, just
    like you, Madam Chair.
        And no colleague is in the same position. Some colleagues
    live with someone who has autoimmune issues. Some live with in-
    laws or spend time with family members who have compromised
    systems. We all have to make decisions based on our own
    personal health and circumstances.
        This isn't anything that has to do with how the press is
    portraying it. This has to do about public health. This has to
    do about the real risks that exist by Members getting on planes
    and coming from all points in the country.
        We don't all live in Washington, D.C. I know maybe in
    another time that was more prevalent. That has been weaponized
    by politics in the past.
        And so many of us, and I among them, I have been to every
    vote that we have made here in the pandemic. I will board a
    plane and come five hours each way doing that and having a
    commute that is over 8 hours each way. And there is no problem
    with that, that is what I signed up for, as my colleague from
    Georgia mentioned.
        But let's not minimize the fact that every Member is going
    to make the decisions that is best for them.
        And I would like to just bring it back briefly to the topic
    of the hearing isn't about our hopes and fears, isn't about the
    press. It is about exploring the feasibility and security of
    the technology that is at hand.
        And so I would like to ask Mr. Green, is there a technology
    in existence in the commercial market space that could be
    useful to the House in creating a secure infrastructure to
    implement remote voting?
        Mr. Green. I don't want to self-promote too much, but of
    course my own company produces something like that that is used
    widely for secure access, and that is just--that is a piece of
    an overall solution. That is not a complete solution.
        So we focus on the network, and there are other tech
    companies that focus on secure network connectivity as well. On
    top of that, you can layer very standard types of technologies,
    whether that is browser-based applications. A voting
    application could be as simple as a web server and a browser
    running on a mobile device.
        So it doesn't have to be a complex thing given that the
    other protections that we have talked about and the other
    panelists have talked about today are in place, notably some
    live verification that a correct vote was received. That is
    really the key to the entire thing.
        So I think we can solve the network problem. We can solve
    the application problem. The other processes that go around it,
    that is the more complicated part.
        Mr. Aguilar. If you were responsible for a secure voting
    system, what would concern you most? What would keep you up at
    night about devising a system that can work?
        Mr. Green. As I indicated at the end of my testimony, I
    would be most concerned about the availability, the fact that
    you may have Members with poor internet connections or no
    internet connections or unreliable internet connections. You
    may have adversaries that specifically target those Members. If
    they know what the vote is going to be and you can prevent
    those specific Members from voting, you may potentially be able
    to throw the vote in a direction or another.
        So, again, backup systems are really critical, and there
    are different ways to engineer those that I think involve
    humans rather than necessarily involving technology that can
    end up making things safe.
        Mr. Aguilar. I appreciate it.
        Professor Rubin, different legislatures in statehouses
    across the country and across the world have taken different
    approaches on this, as you highlighted. Some require
    legislators' emails and signed and scanned ballots. Others have
    created apps.
        When you think of the possibility of the House having a
    vote-remote system, is there a particular system or framework
    that comes to mind that is something you would counsel us to
    consider?
        Mr. Rubin. I think that if we had to recommend a particular
    system, the first step would be to gather the experts together
    and brainstorm that. And I think Dr. Wagner presented some very
    compelling ideas. For example, the recorded--pre-recorded video
    of the vote, as well as what has been discussed, such as a web
    server and an app.
        I think the key underlying all of these is the ability to
    look in real-time and decide if there has been a problem and
    identify it right away.
        And I think as to the availability question, for example,
    the first thing you could do if you are voting on a phone and
    there has been a denial of service attack, perhaps switch from
    your WiFi to your cellular provider and see if that works.
        If that doesn't work, then the next step would be to alert
    somebody and to have a mechanism in place in advance that would
    make it easy to alert someone, saying, ``I am trying to vote
    and my vote has not been successful,'' and then have a
    procedure for getting that vote in some other way.
        Mr. Aguilar. I appreciate it.
        Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
        The Chairperson. Thank you.
        So I would like to recognize myself for a few questions.
        Mr. Crowell, Members of the House are all over the board in
    terms of their familiarity with technology. Are there secure
    methods to remote voting that you think would be more user-
    friendly than others?
        Mr. Crowell. Well, certainly. And, in fact, I would agree
    with what Avi Rubin said, that a purpose-made application
    running on a browser or running in an operating system would be
    the most complete approach and would make it easier for the
    Members to vote no matter what device they were using to vote
    on, because these are commonly available on all of the devices.
        Purpose-built because you want the voting to be very, very
    easy, a ``yes'' or a ``yea'' or a ``nay'' button for the vote
    itself, clear identification of what the matter is in front of
    you so that there is no ambiguity about what you are voting on,
    and the ability to record all of these things not only in real-
    time, but for posterity since these become public records.
        The Chairperson. Right.
        Mr. Crowell. All of that has to be done securely and it can
    be in a purpose-built system as opposed to trying to patch
    together various apps that were never intended to support
    voting.
        The Chairperson. Mr. Green, I wonder if you have thoughts
    on how votes that were cast remotely could be integrated with
    the votes cast in the Chamber from a technological standpoint
    given that the system we have is air gapped with one-way data
    flow?
        Mr. Green. Yeah, I think integrating those systems would be
    ideal so that you don't have a 100 percent remote or a 100
    percent in-person type of voting operation.
        Ultimately, it seems like you are going to need somebody to
    sit there and push the right button or somehow feed those
    systems in, probably that somebody sitting on site in the House
    Chamber or at least in the building there.
        And, again, as long as the Member voting remotely can see
    that and see the result of that, that can be done fairly
    safely.
        The Chairperson. Dr. Rivest, in your testimony you
    mentioned that the most an adversary would be able to do in a
    particular system would be to delete or duplicate votes. Can
    you explain what sort of measures could be taken to protect
    against deletion or duplication of votes?
        Mr. Rivest. Thanks. Great question.
        I think some innovation in the procedural aspects of voting
    in the House might help a lot. One thing that occurs to me
    here, hearing the discussion, would be to be able to file a
    default vote ahead of time so that you can say, ``Should my
    internet go down, should I be unable to communicate, this is
    how I would intend to vote on this bill,'' but then after
    hearing the debate, as Speaker Gingrich suggests, you change
    your mind or you have other influences that cause you to
    rethink the vote, you could file, either remotely or in-person,
    a new vote that would override the default.
        So something like that could be one way of mitigating the
    risk of having unavailability, which is a risk that is pretty
    unique to remote voting compared to in-person voting.
        The Chairperson. Right.
        Dr. Rubin, it is important that we authenticate--we have
    all talked about that--that the vote being cast is being cast
    by the Member herself.
        Do you think we should consider, if we move to this, any
    kind of tech system, a biometric authentication as part of a
    multifactor authentication system? And if so, would that be an
    iris scan?
        Mr. Rubin. So biometrics are very powerful and if designed
    correctly they can provide a useful factor. I am a big fan of
    multifactor authentication, so I think that if there were a way
    to integrate an iris scan such as what you get when you unlock
    an iPhone today--well, that is face recognition, it is not an
    iris scan--but something, some biometric to that effect, if you
    could initialize the system in advance with what a person's
    face is like and then integrate that into the authentication at
    the time, that that would be beneficial.
        But I also think that we can achieve authentication without
    that. So it is just one of the tools in the arsenal that we
    have that can help us when we design a system.
        The Chairperson. Dr. Wagner, would technology that uses a
    lot of bandwidth make denial of service attacks more likely?
    Would it be better to utilize technology with low bandwidth and
    more fault tolerance?
        Mr. Wagner. Thank you.
        I don't think that should be your primary consideration.
    What I would recommend is the primary way to mitigate denial of
    service concerns is to have a fallback method. We don't have
    effective technological ways to absolutely prevent denial of
    service attacks. So the primary defense is to have some other
    alternate channel that can be used in the event of a problem.
        The Chairperson. Let me ask you this. Should we be
    concerned about man-in-the-middle attacks? And if so, what
    would be the best way to secure a system against that type of
    attack?
        Mr. Wagner. Certainly. Man-in-the-middle attacks could
    arise if casting votes over the internet or over a telephony
    system where attacks are possible. And there are industry
    standard defenses that would be effective at preventing man-in-
    the-middle attacks. For instance, many of us have referenced
    end-to-end encryption, which is an effective defense.
        So I think using industry standard mechanisms would be a
    reasonable way to defend against those attacks.
        The Chairperson. Thank you.
        I see my time is expired, so I want to thank all of the
    witnesses for this enormously valuable testimony.
        I would note that House Resolution 965 requires this
    committee ``to study the feasibility of using technology to
    conduct remote voting in the House.''
        So that is what we are about. We have different views on
    whether we should or shouldn't. But our task is to examine the
    technology and to be able to certify to the House if we are
    able to determine that an operable and secure technology exists
    to conduct remote voting in the House.
        The testimony received today is enormously helpful in
    helping us to complete the task that has been assigned to us.
    And I would like to note for the witnesses that the Members may
    have additional questions for you. And if we do, we would ask
    that you respond to those questions in writing and the hearing
    record will be open for those responses.
        You know, this is an important question for all of us.
    Nothing is perfect. And I was listening to Members. I have
    missed votes, not because of a denial of service attack, but
    because United Airlines took off late and I didn't make it in
    time to go to the House floor.
        I agree, Mr. Gingrich, there is really nothing to
    substitute for Members going on a codel together and getting to
    know each other, but that is not happening now because we are
    following the advice of the attending physician.
        And I love being on the floor when the mix of Members,
    everybody is running around and talking to each other and
    getting letters signed, but that is not happening either
    because the attending physician is saying we have to go in
    groups of 20 and then leave.
        The votes are taking a very long time because of the need
    for social distancing. So in this pandemic our situation has
    changed.
        We look forward to the time when the conflagration of this
    pandemic has abated. I envy you there in Rome where you are not
    actually with the kind of wildfire that is eating through
    America with this--not just America, but my own State of
    California, where thousands and thousands of positives are
    logging in every day. It is really a very serious matter.
        Mr. Gingrich. If I might, Madam Chairperson, I just want to
    say, I think for the purpose you were assigned, to ascertain
    whether or not it is technically doable, this was a superb
    hearing. It makes me proud to, once again, be briefly part of
    House Administration. I think you had terrific guests, and I
    think they all did a very fine job of outlining the technical
    possibilities. So thank you for allowing me to be part of that.
        The Chairperson. Well, thank you for that. From a former
    Speaker, that is great praise indeed and we appreciate it.
        With that, I want to thank all the Members for their
    participation. I ask unanimous consent to put into the record a
    letter received from Demand Progress and keep the record open
    for other material that Members may wish to add to the record.
        [The information follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        The Chairperson. And with that, we are ready to adjourn,
    and I will take my gavel and virtually tap it.
        We are adjourned. Thank you very much.
        [Whereupon, at 2:56 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

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