[Senate Hearing 118-171]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                         S. Hrg. 118-171

                         ONGOING THREATS TO ELECTION 
                                ADMINISTRATION

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

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                 COMMITTEE ON RULES AND ADMINISTRATION
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                      WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2023

                               __________

    Printed for the use of the Committee on Rules and Administration
    
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                  Available on http://www.govinfo.gov
                  
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                   U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                  
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                 COMMITTEE ON RULES AND ADMINISTRATION

                             FIRST SESSION

                  AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota, Chairwoman

CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York         DEB FISCHER, Nebraska
MARK R. WARNER, Virginia             MITCH McCONNELL, Kentucky
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon                 TED CRUZ, Texas
ALEX PADILLA, California             SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West 
JON OSSOFF, Georgia                      Virginia
MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado          ROGER WICKER, Mississippi
PETER WELCH, Vermont                 CINDY HYDE-SMITH, Mississippi
LAPHONZA R. BUTLER, California       BILL HAGERTY, Tennessee
                                     KATIE BOYD BRITT, Alabama

                    Elizabeth Farrar, Staff Director
                Jackie Barber, Republican Staff Director


                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                              ----------                              
                                                                  Pages

                         Opening Statement of:

Hon. Amy Klobuchar, Chairwoman, a United States Senator from the 
  State of Minnesota.............................................     1
Hon. Deb Fischer, a United States Senator from the State of 
  Nebraska.......................................................     3
Hon. Adrian Fontes, Secretary of State, Arizona Office of the 
  Secretary of State, Phoenix, Arizona...........................     5
Hon. Al Schmidt, Secretary of the Commonwealth, Pennsylvania 
  Department of State, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania..................     7
Wayne J. Bena, Deputy Secretary of State for Elections, Nebraska 
  Office of the Secretary of State, Lincoln, Nebraska............     9
Alan Farley, Administrator of Elections, Rutherford County 
  Election Commission, Murfreesboro, Tennessee...................    11
Elizabeth Howard, Deputy Director of the Elections and Government 
  Program, Democracy, Brennan Center for Justice, Washington DC..    13

                         Prepared Statement of:

Hon. Adrian Fontes, Secretary of State, Arizona Office of the 
  Secretary of State, Phoenix, Arizona...........................    33
Hon. Al Schmidt, Secretary of the Commonwealth, Pennsylvania 
  Department of State, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania..................    42
Wayne J. Bena, Deputy Secretary of State for Elections, Nebraska 
  Office of the Secretary of State, Lincoln, Nebraska............    46
Alan Farley, Administrator of Elections, Rutherford County 
  Election Commission, Murfreesboro, Tennessee...................    48
Elizabeth Howard, Deputy Director of the Elections and Government 
  Program, Democracy, Brennan Center for Justice, Washington DC..    51

                            For the Record:

Statement of Dr. Natalie M. Scala, Townson University, Empowering 
  Secure Elections...............................................    66
Issue One--The High Cost of High Turnover........................    69
Statement of Tiana Epps-Johnson, Executive Director of the Center 
  for Tech and Civic Life........................................    85
Testimony of Aaron Ammons, Champaign County Clerk, Recroder of 
  Deeds..........................................................    90

                  Questions Submitted for the Record:

Hon. Amy Klobuchar, Chairwoman, a United States Senator from the 
  State of Minnesota to Hon. Adrian Fontes, Secretary of State, 
  Arizona Office of the Secretary of State, Phoenix, Arizona.....    94
Hon. Amy Klobuchar, Chairwoman, a United States Senator from the 
  State of Minnesota to Hon. Al Schmidt, Secretary of the 
  Commonwealth, Pennsylvania Department of State, Harrisburg, 
  Pennsylvania...................................................    96
Hon. Amy Klobuchar, Chairwoman, a United States Senator from the 
  State of Minnesota to Wayne J. Bena, Deputy Secretary of State 
  for Elections, Nebraska Office of the Secretary of State, 
  Lincoln, Nebraska..............................................    97
Hon. Deb Fischer, a United States Senator from the State of 
  Nebraska to Wayne J. Bena, Deputy Secretary of State for 
  Elections, Nebraska Office of the Secretary of State, Lincoln, 
  Nebraska.......................................................    97

[[Page iv]]

Hon. Amy Klobuchar, Chairwoman, a United States Senator from the 
  State of Minnesota to Alan Farley, Administrator of Elections, 
  Rutherford County Election Commission, Murfreesboro, Tennessee.    98
Hon. Deb Fischer, a United States Senator from the State of 
  Nebraska to Alan Farley, Administrator of Elections, Rutherford 
  County Election Commission, Murfreesboro, Tennessee............    98
Hon. Amy Klobuchar, Chairwoman, a United States Senator from the 
  State of Minnesota to Elizabeth Howard, Deputy Director of the 
  Elections and Government Program, Democracy, Brennan Center for 
  Justice, Washington DC.........................................   100

 
               ONGOING THREATS TO ELECTION ADMINISTRATION

                              ----------                              


                      WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2023

                               United States Senate
                      Committee on Rules and Administration
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 3:07 p.m., in 
Room 301, Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. Amy Klobuchar, 
Chairwoman of the Committee, presiding.
    Present: Senators Klobuchar, Fischer, Merkley, Padilla, 
Ossoff, Bennet, Welch, Butler, Hagerty, and Britt.

         OPENING STATEMENT OF HONORABLE AMY KLOBUCHAR,

            CHAIRWOMAN, A UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM

                     THE STATE OF MINNESOTA

    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Good afternoon. Honored to call this 
hearing of the Rules and Administration Committee to order. I 
would like to thank Ranking Member Fischer, our colleagues, our 
staffs, and all of our wonderful witnesses.
    I will note that we have four votes going on. What could go 
wrong? You are going to see people running back and forth. I 
also note that Senator Butler, this is her first hearing, and 
we welcome you to the Committee as a new Member. Thank you.
    [Applause.]
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. I also note that you are going to be 
presiding, so we will try to accommodate that as well. We do 
want to take a moment to thank Senator Feinstein, a monumental 
figure in Congress, a trailblazer, and the first woman to Chair 
this Committee. She also Chaired the Inauguration. We thank 
her. We know Senator Padilla knew her very well and we miss 
her.
    Our witnesses, who I will introduce shortly are, Arizona 
Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, Pennsylvania's Secretary of 
the Commonwealth Al Schmidt, who testified before this 
Committee in 2021, Elizabeth Howard, who is the Deputy Director 
of the Democracy Program for Elections at the Brennan Center, 
and I know Senator Fischer will be introducing Nebraska Deputy 
Secretary of State for Elections Wayne Bena. Then Senator 
Hagerty will be introducing the Administrator of Elections for 
Rutherford County in Tennessee, Alan Farley.
    We are just over a year until the 2024 election. We are 
here to discuss the ongoing threats and abusive conduct 
targeting election workers across the country and the need for 
bipartisan solutions to counter these threats.

    Public servants who have been threatened over the last few 
years come from red, blue, and purple states. They are 
Democrats and Republicans. Many are volunteers. They are 
essential to the administration of our free and fair elections.
    In all 50 states they are now hard at work to ensure that 
the upcoming elections run smoothly, with some primary ballots 
actually going out as soon as next month. But persisting 
threats, which rose alarmingly in recent years, as we have 
discussed in this Committee, have resulted in all too many of 
these workers leaving their jobs.
    At the same time, it has made it harder to recruit more 
poll workers and other officials to run our elections. Here is 
what is at stake. In Arizona, 80 percent of counties have lost 
their chief local election official in the last three years.
    As Secretary Fontes noted in his written testimony, Arizona 
has lost a combined 176 years of expertise with those 
officials. In Pennsylvania, more than 50 top local election 
officials resigned over the same time period. In some states, 
county election offices have lost all of their staff, as we saw 
in Buckingham County, Virginia earlier this year.
    This turnover is happening in states nationwide, resulting 
in a loss of valuable experience. According to one study of 161 
counties in 11 Western states that have new chief election 
officials in the past three years, the median amount of 
experience has dropped from about eight years to one year.
    It is not hard to understand why election workers are 
leaving their posts and resigning. Their families have 
experienced horrific threats, as Secretaries Fontes and Schmidt 
are well aware. Secretary Fontes' children had to vacate their 
home for days following serious threats to their safety. Last 
year in Maricopa County, there were armed people, some dressed 
in camo, intimidating voters in drop boxes.
    When Secretary Schmidt last appeared before our Committee, 
he shared with us how his address, a picture of his house, and 
his kids' names had been put out on the internet, along with 
the graphic messages he received threatening their lives. That 
was while he served as a Republican election official. We heard 
about several more harrowing experiences that election workers 
faced while on the job during last year's midterms.
    One election worker in Oregon reported being almost run off 
the road while driving by a woman yelling traitor out of her 
window. One Maricopa County official in Arizona shared that 
last November he received a threat identifying his home address 
and threatening the lives of his four children.
    According to an April 2023 survey of local election 
officials from the Brennan Center, nearly one in three say they 
have been either threatened, abused, harassed, and one in five 
say they know someone who left their job in elections due to 
safety concerns. Notably, the Department of Homeland Security 
released an advisory in May warning about violent extremism, 
including threats related to elections.
    In states such as Georgia, we have also seen efforts to 
remove election officials from their positions, including 
efforts targeting nonpartisan officials in Texas and Wisconsin.

    Protecting election workers should not be a partisan issue. 
As we will hear from our witnesses about the ongoing threats, 
we must work together to find common ground to protect the 
people on the front lines of our democracy.
    Last year, before Senator Fischer and I together Chaired 
this Committee, Senator Blunt was the lead Republican, and he 
and I worked together on the Election Assistance Commission 
actions. We asked them to act, and they voted unanimously to 
allow election officials to use federal funding to protect 
election workers from threats and harassment.
    This was a step forward, but we need to do more to ensure 
election officials have the resources they need. I lead 
comprehensive legislation, the Freedom to Vote Act, that 
includes provisions to protect election officials from threats 
and harassment.
    I also introduced the Election Worker Protection Act with 
26 cosponsors to provide needed resources to states to recruit 
and train election workers, make safety improvements, and 
establish safeguards to shield election workers from 
intimidation and threats. The urgent need to protect election 
workers is clear, and we have had a number of Secretaries of 
State across the country endorse this bill.
    The Justice Department also must play a key role, as well 
as local law enforcement, in making sure that election workers 
are protected.
    I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about these 
serious issues and how we can work together to address them. 
With that, I will turn it over to Senator Fischer.

  OPENING STATEMENT OF HONORABLE DEB FISCHER, A UNITED STATES 
               SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF NEBRASKA

    Senator Fischer. Good afternoon, and thank you, Chairwoman 
Klobuchar, for holding this hearing today. Thank you to our 
witnesses for joining us. I would also like to welcome our new 
Member of the Committee, Senator Butler, from California.
    Welcome. We appreciate having you on this Committee and 
look forward to working with you on a number of good issues.
    Today, we will hear from state and local election officials 
from across the country, including the great State of Nebraska, 
about threats to election administration.
    We look forward to hearing your testimony and learning from 
your experiences. As voters, on Election Day, we are focused on 
which candidate we will pick for County Commissioner, Governor, 
or United States Senator, but well before voters fill in a 
single oval, state and local election officials are making sure 
that every name on the ballot is perfectly spelled, that the 
ballot paper is the correct weight for scanning, and that 
election equipment is tested and secured.
    Election officials are assigning election workers to 
polling locations and making sure that each polling location 
has the correct equipment and number of ballots. Needless to 
say, state and local election officials work tirelessly to 
administer elections, often managing multiple elections in a 
year.
    In recent years, election officials have faced both 
cybersecurity threats and physical threats. They have struggled 
to retain experi


enced poll workers, and to recruit and train new poll workers. 
They have had to work hard to make sure that voters have 
confidence and that their ballots were cast as intended, and 
that voters have faith in that final vote count.
    I am interested in hearing from our witnesses about the 
specific challenges they are facing as they administer 
elections. I want to understand not only what these issues are, 
but how widespread they are, and how they are being addressed. 
If outside assistance, either state, federal, or private, is 
being used to address them.
    I am also interested in hearing if and how support provided 
by the Federal Government over the years is working. Is the 
Federal Government providing actionable information about 
election threats in a timely manner? Have clear lines of 
communication and cooperation been established? Is there other 
information that the Federal Government should be sharing with 
election officials?
    For more than 200 years, states have been responsible for 
administering elections in this country. These elections are 
being conducted in nearly 177,000 voting precincts across our 
country. As we examine the threats that state and local 
election officials are seeing in election administration, we 
must remember that elections in this country are diverse.
    The threats and challenges they face are diverse, and the 
solutions will be diverse. I thank my colleagues and our 
witnesses for being here today, and I look forward to a 
productive discussion. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you very much. Introducing our 
witnesses, Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes. He was 
elected in 2022 after previously serving as Maricopa County 
Recorder.
    Earlier in his career, he worked as a prosecutor and led 
the International Prosecution Unit at the Arizona AG's Office. 
He is a veteran of the Marine Corps and graduated from Arizona 
State and the University of Denver Law School.
    Our next witness is Pennsylvania Secretary of the 
Commonwealth Al Schmidt. He was appointed in January, confirmed 
in June. He previously served for 10 years as a Republican City 
Commissioner in Philadelphia, where he was Vice Chairman of the 
bipartisan Board of Elections. He graduated from Allegheny 
College and received a doctorate in History from Brandeis. He 
also worked for the Presidential Commission on Holocaust 
Assets.
    Then with us, Elizabeth Howard, Deputy Director of the 
Democracy Program for Elections and Government at the Brennan 
Center for Justice. Previously, she served as Deputy 
Commissioner for the Virginia Department of Elections.
    She graduated from the University of Tennessee and William 
and Mary Law School. With that, I will turn it over to Senator 
Fischer.
    Senator Fischer. Thank you, Madam Chair. Again, I thank our 
witnesses for joining us today. We have with us Wayne Bena, 
Nebraska's Deputy Secretary of State for Elections. Before 
joining the Secretary of State's Office, Mr. Bena served as a 
local election official in Sarpy County, Nebraska.
    I have had the privilege of working with him to serve 
Nebraskans for many years now, and I am pleased that he has 
come all

the way from Lincoln to join us for this important hearing. I 
look forward to your testimony, Mr. Bena.
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. All right. Last but not least, 
Senator Hagerty.
    Senator Hagerty. Thank you, Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank 
you, Ranking Member Fischer. It is always a privilege to have 
Tennesseans join us here in the Senate. It is my honor today to 
introduce one of our witnesses, Alan Farley. Mr. Farley 
currently serves as the Election Administrator for Rutherford 
County, Tennessee.
    There, he serves since his appointment by the County 
Commission since 2014. During his time as Election 
Administrator, Mr. Farley has led several important 
initiatives, including replacing paperless voting machines with 
machines that provide a verifiable paper audit trail. He has 
pushed for protecting election infrastructure from cyber-
attacks. He has emphasized the importance of recruiting, 
training, and retaining poll workers.
    He pioneered a system under which voters can identify and 
use the most convenient polling place on Election Day. Mr. 
Farley has carried out his work in a nonpartisan, professional 
manner that inspires public confidence in the integrity of our 
elections. It is a great service to our state and to our 
Republic.
    I want to thank Mr. Farley for joining us today, to let him 
know that we appreciate his public service and glad that he is 
here. I also want to acknowledge that I just learned Ms. Howard 
is a Tennessean as well. Congratulations on graduating from the 
fine University of Tennessee and for being born in my home 
state. Thank you.
    [Laughter.]
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. You have stacked the Committee, 
Senator Hagerty. In addition to the Senators I mentioned 
earlier, I want to thank Senator Britt for joining us and 
Senator Merkley and Senator Welch.
    We have many, many Senators here today. I am going to swear 
in our witnesses. Just take a minute. If you could stand up. Do 
you swear that the testimony you will give before the Committee 
shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, 
so help you God?
    Mr. Fontes. I do.
    Mr. Schmidt. I do.
    Mr. Bena. I do.
    Ms. Howard. I do.
    Mr. Farley. I do.
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you, and you can be seated. We 
will now turn to you--each of you for a five minute statement, 
starting with Secretary of State Fontes.

         OPENING STATEMENT OF HONORABLE ADRIAN FONTES,

 SECRETARY OF STATE, ARIZONA OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF STATE, 
                        PHOENIX, ARIZONA

    Mr. Fontes. Thank you, Chairwoman Klobuchar, Ranking Member 
Fischer, and Members of the Committee. Thank you for the 
opportunity to discuss the ongoing threats to elections 
administration and the preparation we in Arizona are making. I 
formerly served

as the Maricopa County Recorder, overseeing the second largest 
voting jurisdiction in the United States of America.
    My team worked in a bipartisan manner to upgrade equipment 
and processes and grew the number of registered voters in that 
one county by 500,000 voters in just four years. Now, as the 
Arizona Secretary of State, I am dedicated to the following 
premise: It is the American voter who should dictate outcomes, 
not partisan leaning officials or foreign actors. But with all 
the election misinformation and threats that have emerged 
therefrom, there has been a grave human cost. Since 2020, 12 
out of 15 of Arizona's counties have lost senior election 
officials.
    As a former county recorder myself, I can attest that the 
pre-2020 world for election administrators is gone. We do not 
feel safe in our work because of the harassment and threats 
that are based in lies.
    Just ask a former county recorder about her dogs, poisoned 
as a means of intimidation. Her story is one of many veteran 
Arizona officials from both political parties who have left the 
profession for the sake of their own physical, mental, and 
emotional health, and that of their families. The cost of 
persistent misrepresentations about the integrity of our 
elections is high, but the cost of inaction against those 
threats is higher.
    Some of the measures we have taken to address the loss of 
our expertise have included: intensive certification training; 
developing a more user friendly elections procedures manual--
the rules of the game; hiring the first statewide chief 
information security officer dedicated to elections; 
instituting monthly security briefings, and bringing in 
technical experts from across the country; planning and 
executing tabletop exercises, including one upcoming in 
December with CISA, to participate and prepare against new 
threats.
    Speaking of new threats, artificial intelligence, which has 
the potential to confuse voters and wreak havoc on the 
administration of elections, is one of those emergent new 
threats. Imagine, if you will, Members of the Committee, an 
election administrator like myself, showing up in a deep fake 
telling voters in a certain part of a jurisdiction that their 
polling places have been relocated and that the polling place 
times have changed.
    Social media alone has the capacity to spread these kinds 
of deep fakes and lies far and wide with alarming speed. Now, 
if I were to go on TV afterwards or even Instagram live to 
debunk these deep fakes, who would know which was the real me? 
Foreign actors from hostile states such as Iran, China, Russia, 
and North Korea appear ready to take advantage of this 
nightmare scenario.
    But we are meeting these challenges head on by pre-bunking 
and not just debunking this misinformation. We are working with 
the National Association of Secretaries of State on their, 
#Trusted Info 2024, initiative. We are livestreaming equipment 
certification with bipartisan observers. We are protecting our 
voter registration databases from AI generated attacks and 
more.
    To be sure, federal agencies are key partners, including 
EAC with their best practices guides, the United States Postal 
Service prioritizing the protection of election mail, and CISA, 
as I have mentioned.

    But there is still more that can be done and there is more 
that you can do. Help America Vote Act funds, as I have 
mentioned personally to some Members of this Committee and your 
staff, continue to be merely intermittent and wholly 
insufficient to provide predictable and sustained support that 
local jurisdictions require.
    These jurisdictions run our federal elections with federal 
candidates on federal ballots, using federal rules, without any 
sustained or predictable federal support in the form of 
funding. This is very concerning. I am deeply grateful to 
Senator Klobuchar for introducing the Freedom to Vote Act and 
other proposed legislation that aims to help, and I urge 
Congress to move forward this important legislation.
    Moreover, I implore you to ensure the vital election 
security services provided by CISA's physical security and 
cybersecurity agents survive any potential issues when it comes 
to negotiating the federal budget.
    In conclusion, threats to American democracy are real, and 
American election administrators are rising to meet these 
challenges, but we cannot do it alone. Now, more than ever, we 
need a sustained and robust Congressional commitment to support 
our efforts in protecting the democracy that upholds this great 
Republic against the threats that every single one of us faces.
    I thank you for the invitation to testify, and I look 
forward to answering any questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Fontes was submitted for the 
record.]
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you very much. Secretary 
Schmidt.

           OPENING STATEMENT OF HONORABLE AL SCHMIDT,

          SECRETARY OF THE COMMONWEALTH, PENNSYLVANIA

         DEPARTMENT OF STATE, HARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA

    Mr. Schmidt. Good afternoon, Chairwoman Klobuchar, Ranking 
Member Fischer, and Members of the Senate Rules and 
Administration. I have already submitted written testimony, so 
if I may, I just want to highlight a couple of quick issues 
that I would like to bring extra attention to.
    My name is Al Schmitt. I am Secretary of the Commonwealth 
of Pennsylvania. Prior to that, I had run elections in 
Pennsylvania's largest county in Philadelphia for nearly ten 
years. My experience in 2020 was unfortunately not unique, as 
we saw with election administrators throughout our country.
    In big cities and rural counties, red and blue alike, were 
frequently on the receiving end of violent threats against 
them, or targeting their families, or their coworkers, or any 
number of other efforts to sort of intimidate or coerce.
    Since I last testified before this Committee two years ago, 
almost on this same topic, there have been a couple of 
developments that I think are important. The passage of the 
Electoral Reform--Electoral Count Act Reform----
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you for mentioning that. I 
forgot.
    Mr. Schmidt. It was something--I was very happy to see it 
and I testified at to--on, you know, to support that two years 
ago. I

think that is a big development to sort of close that window of 
opportunity for bad faith actors to undermine confidence in 
election results.
    I think that is a very significant--a very significant 
development. Other outside groups, nonpartisan, nonpolitical 
groups, Committee for Safe and Secure Elections works to bring 
together election administrators with law enforcement.
    I know one lesson learned in 2020 is when a lot of this 
happened, we really did not know what to do or who to go to, 
and neither did law enforcement. Building those bridges is an 
important thing. This organization called Issue One, which has 
the Faces of Democracy campaign really intended to humanize 
election administrators. These are friends, these are family, 
your neighbors that are running elections. I think it is 
important that they be viewed as such in this important public 
service.
    EOLDN, which is a group put together to provide pro-bono 
legal services to election administrators when they are 
harassed or coerced with malicious litigation seeming to try to 
destroy their livelihood. But the environment, unfortunately, 
despite these developments, remains the same, and it remains 
contentious.
    In the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, we have now lost about 
70 election directors or assistant election directors in our 67 
counties, and in some counties since 2020, they have changed 
election after election after election.
    The consequences of that, I think, are sometimes on display 
when you have people running elections who have less experience 
running elections, they are more likely to make errors, and 
make errors in an environment where everything is perceived as 
being intentional and malicious and seeking to change the 
outcome of the election, even though it is really a reflection 
of their lack of experience.
    That is, in my opinion, probably the biggest, if not one of 
the biggest challenges faced in election administration right 
now is the significant turnover of experienced officials. 
People leave for different reasons, one reason or another, but 
if they are--if they have been--if they are able to retire, for 
example, and they do not want to put up with this anymore, they 
take advantage of that opportunity to retire.
    We have certainly seen that in Pennsylvania. It is one of 
those things that I think is contributing to, with so many 
questions out there and elections changing so much, 
contributing to efforts to undermine confidence in elections, 
despite them never being more safe and more secure than they 
are right now.
    Starting in 2020, moving forward, every county in 
Pennsylvania, every voter votes on a voting system with a voter 
verifiable paper ballot that the voter reviews before casting 
their vote. Or they can now, since 2020, passed by a Republican 
House and a Republican Senate, and signed by a Democratic 
Governor, vote by mail, if they choose.
    Also, obviously, a voter verifiable paper ballot. All those 
ballots are used in not one, but two audits after every 
election. It is perverse to see so many questions about 
elections at a time when they have never been more safe and 
never been more secure.

    At the Department of State, we have been focused on 
building--training up--a training program for new election 
directors, producing training materials for them, and really 
trying to be of service to them as they step into this 
important responsibility to run elections.
    I want to thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I 
applaud the steps that you have already taken, some of which I 
have mentioned, and I urge you to continue to work across party 
lines to find common ground on election reforms that will 
ensure the safety of local election officials who make our 
representative democracy possible.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Schmidt was submitted for 
the record.]
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Yes, and I note, thank you for 
bringing the Electoral Count Act Reform. We had that.
    I remember it was 14 to 1 vote on this Committee. Both 
Senator Schumer and Senator McConnell, this is the only 
Committee they serve on and supported this bill.
    It was a big moment for the Committee. I hope we have more 
of those in this area. Thank you. Mr. Bena, who I know has 
worked with our Secretary of State in Minnesota, Steve Simon, 
and we welcome you.

           OPENING STATEMENT OF WAYNE J. BENA, DEPUTY

   SECRETARY OF STATE FOR ELECTIONS, NEBRASKA OFFICE OF THE 
             SECRETARY OF STATE, LINCOLN, NEBRASKA

    Mr. Bena. Good afternoon, Chair Klobuchar, Ranking Member 
Fischer, and Members of the Rules and Administration Committee.
    My name is Wayne Bena, and I have the honor and privilege 
of serving as Nebraska's Deputy Secretary of State for 
Elections. Before serving this state, like many of my 
counterparts here at the table, I served in my local capacity 
as the Sarpy County Election Commissioner.
    This gave me an on the ground experience on what it takes 
to operate elections efficiently and effectively. In my 14 
years of election administration, I have seen Nebraska election 
officials rise to the critical challenges of cybersecurity, 
conducting elections in a pandemic, census delays, and 
combating election related misinformation.
    On the cybersecurity front, Nebraska is always working to 
address potential areas of concern in our election processes. 
In 2018, we led the way in securing our voter registration 
system. Nebraska implemented multi-factor authentication to 
prevent unauthorized access on the front end and on the back 
end installing a computer intrusion detection device called an 
Albert Sensor, which detects malicious activity.
    The installation of this sensor, which was the first to be 
ever used on the servers of a private elections vendor, has 
been replicated in seven other states and has won the National 
Association of State Elections Directors Inaugural Election 
Innovation Award in 2019.
    In 2020, during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, 
Nebraska election officials came together to hold one of the 
only

statewide primaries in the month of May. We had every polling 
site in the state open with the required number of poll 
workers.
    Our county election officials worked tirelessly to ensure 
Nebraskans could vote in-person safely. Voters in that election 
set the record for the most ballots cast in a Nebraska primary.
    Only a year later, in 2021, when the census was late for 
the first time in the history of our country, Nebraska 
officials were on the forefront of challenging the Census 
Bureau to release population data earlier than proposed.
    We wanted to allow enough time for election officials to 
implement new district lines for the 2022 elections. Nebraska 
was third in the Nation to finish their federal and state 
redistricting work. That efficiency resulted in no delays in 
administering our May 2022 primary.
    In 2022, Nebraska expanded its post-election manual audit 
from 2 percent of the precincts statewide to 10 percent of the 
precincts statewide, with at least one precinct selected in 
every county.
    During this audit, election officials across the state 
manually counted three separate races on over 48,292 ballots, 
with only 11 discrepancies discovered. That is an error rate of 
23,000th of 1 percent. This post-election audit provided 
valuable data in each county to verify the accuracy of our 
ballot counting equipment.
    Let me be clear, this expanded audit was not easy, but it 
provides another example of how our election officials go above 
and beyond to ensure the utmost integrity in our elections. I 
am proud to work with Nebraska's county election commissioners, 
county clerks, and their staff and their poll workers.
    We have handled all the challenges before us one day at a 
time, one deadline at a time. They are our friends, family 
members, and our neighbors. They are the reason why Nebraska 
elections are a model for the country.
    There is no doubt that challenges lie ahead in 2024. Voters 
will undoubtedly hear the numerous times that this will be the 
most important election in their lifetime. The Presidential 
Election will draw the most voters we will see in a four year 
cycle, and interest will be at an all-time high.
    Under Nebraska Secretary of State's Bob Evnen's leadership, 
this election division will work hard with our county election 
officials to ensure Nebraska elections continue to be safe, 
accurate, and secure.
    I wanted to take a moment to thank my team. The members of 
the election division are a dedicated group of individuals who 
ensure that our counties receive the backing and the resources 
they need to be successful.
    I was once told to hire people smarter than you and give 
them the tools and resources to be successful. I could not ask 
for a better group of people to work with.
    In closing, I would like to say on behalf of all election 
administrators in this country, whether or not they have an 
election today, tomorrow, or next year, to say to the voters 
across our country, your ballot will be waiting for you. Go 
cast it.
    Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I look 
forward to our continued discussions, not only today, but in 
the years to come. Thank you.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Bena was submitted for the 
record.]
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you very much. Mr. Farley.

       OPENING STATEMENT OF ALAN FARLEY, ADMINISTRATOR OF

             ELECTIONS, RUTHERFORD COUNTY ELECTION

              COMMISSION, MURFREESBORO, TENNESSEE

    Mr. Farley. Chair Klobuchar, Ranking Member Fischer, 
Members of the Rules Committee, thank you for this opportunity. 
I am Alan Farley and I have the privilege and honor to serve as 
the Administrator of Elections for Rutherford County, 
Tennessee.
    I am truly honored to be here. Thank you for seeking input 
from local election officials such as myself, who serve on the 
front lines conducting our local, state, and federal elections. 
Many times, decisions are made from a 30,000 foot view instead 
of getting input from the individuals who have sleepless nights 
making sure that everything goes flawlessly on Election Day.
    Our motto is, we have to be 100 percent right, 100 percent 
of the time. We do not have the luxury of accuracy like the 
weatherman. Rutherford County is a suburb of Nashville, that 
has a blend of political diversity with conservatives, 
progressives, young millennials, and a college campus of 22,000 
students.
    Last week, my staff and I hosted an event for over 250 of 
our election workers who worked in the 2020 and 2022 elections, 
and they were eager to return. We discussed many topics, 
including improvements made for the 2024 Presidential cycle. 
Threats to election officials were never mentioned.
    Conversation with chain of custody of ballots, 
cybersecurity issues, provisional balloting, and guessing on 
how many people would turn out to vote were the focus of all 
the election workers that attended.
    Recruitment of election workers is always a priority for 
local election administrators, but the biggest hurdle we hear 
from residents is their ability to take off work or their 
children's extracurricular activities interfering with Election 
Day, but never that we are concerned for their well-being.
    I recognize that each state faces different challenges, but 
the common element is that all 50 states should assess each 
situation and determine who is best to address the challenge. 
In 2018, I had the pleasure of participating in the Belfer 
Center defending the Digital Democracy Project at Harvard 
University.
    That was a bipartisan effort to work with states and local 
election jurisdictions to improve our cybersecurity measures 
and address misinformation because of issues that occurred in 
the 2012 and 2016 Presidential Elections.
    I was asked by the DDP leadership team to work with that 
group to provide them realistic Election Day scenarios for 
future tabletop exercises. That was an excellent train the 
trainer exercise that prepared state election officials to 
train local election staff on addressing cyber threats that we 
could face during elections.
    As time passes, so does the need for continued advancement 
in cybersecurity. I strongly believe the Federal Government can 
best serve local election officials with funding and beefing up 
cybersecurity. If you truly want to secure elections in our 
Nation,

invest federal dollars and building a stronger information 
technology structure at the local level.
    Many counties in the State of Tennessee do not have 
adequate funding for county IT departments. In 2020, Rutherford 
County, which has a population of 380,000 residents, had more 
residents vote than any other election before in our county.
    This occurred during a global pandemic and the most intense 
political environment ever in our Nation's history. All those 
strife and fear were conveyed by the state and national media. 
We did not experience any serious threats, none whatsoever. Our 
election workers were faced with big crowds, long lines due to 
the six foot distancing requirements, which brought about short 
tempers in some cases.
    Our staff and election workers were able to handle each 
situation without incident. Even though we have not had any 
serious threats, we still have a plan in case one arises. I 
have already met with my local sheriff and his command staff in 
preparing for the 2024 election cycle.
    They are aware of the locations and dates when early voting 
and Election Day will occur, all municipal law enforcement 
jurisdictions are coordinated with the sheriff's office in the 
event a problem arises. This allows for the local law 
enforcement agencies to respond quickly if needed. Our 
Secretary of State Office has direct access to the Tennessee 
Department of Homeland Security if we need its involvement.
    I believe that every participant in the electoral process, 
whether it be a voter, election worker, a poll watcher, and 
candidate, should be free to carry out their duties without 
threat of violence, verbal abuse, or physical harm. However, I 
do not support making each situation a federal issue.
    Local election officials know their community and they know 
our people, and know how best to handle a situation, if one 
occurs. If we need help, we will ask for it locally. Every 
local official wants a smooth and orderly election. I know my 
counterparts across the State of Tennessee, like me, have a 
good working relationship with our local law enforcement 
agencies and District Attorney General.
    Local election officers have established processes in place 
to deal with numerous challenges, including threats to election 
workers. We currently have access to HAVA funds to purchase 
upgraded voting equipment, hardened cybersecurity.
    Congress should continue to place its focus on advancing 
and improving upon cybersecurity measures. That would be a 
better service and have greater impact on protecting our 
democracy.
    I join many other election administrators throughout our 
Nation who are opposed to adding more bureaucratic strings to 
administering elections. Thank you again for this opportunity 
to address this Committee.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Farley was submitted for the 
record.]
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you very much. Ms. Howard.

         OPENING STATEMENT OF ELIZABETH HOWARD, DEPUTY

            DIRECTOR OF THE ELECTIONS AND GOVERNMENT

        PROGRAM, DEMOCRACY, BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE,

                         WASHINGTON, DC

    Ms. Howard. Thank you, Chairwoman Klobuchar, Ranking Member 
Fischer, and Members of this Committee for the honor of 
speaking with you today about threats to election 
administration, including threats against our election 
officials.
    I and election officials across the country are very 
grateful for this Committee's ongoing work to increase 
awareness of these threats and to find bipartisan solutions. In 
the United States, our highly decentralized election system 
results in a complex quilt of American elections.
    While federal and state Governments play important roles, 
the administration of our elections is largely the 
responsibility of local officials. Free, fair, and secure 
elections for Mayor, County Commissioner, Governor, and United 
States Senator rely on hardworking public servants who serve as 
local election administrators.
    There are approximately 8,000 to 10,000 local election 
jurisdictions in the United States, the majority of which are 
very small, with 5,000 or fewer registered voters. Another 27 
percent of our election jurisdictions have only between 5,000 
and 25,000 registered voters. The typical local election 
official in these jurisdictions is a 50 to 64 year old woman 
who earns approximately $50,000 annually.
    She took the job because she saw it as an opportunity to 
serve her community. She often has a wide range of 
responsibilities, including voter registration, voting machine 
procurement, voter education, poll worker recruitment and 
training, and much more.
    In 2017, when our election infrastructure was designated as 
critical infrastructure, she was informed that she is also 
responsible for protecting our election infrastructure against 
foreign adversaries such as China and Iran.
    Despite being underfunded and under-resourced, our election 
officials are rising to the challenge. Over the past six years, 
there has been a remarkable improvement in the resiliency of 
our election infrastructure.
    Today, election officials view cybersecurity as a critical 
component of election security, and they have taken many 
important steps to harden their system against cyber-attacks, 
such as deploying new and more secure voting equipment, and 
developing and practicing plans to respond to cyber threats 
such as DDoS attacks and ransomware.
    This significant shift would not have happened without the 
dedicated funding that Congress provided for election security 
and the important assistance provided by multiple federal 
agencies, including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure 
Security Agency and the United States Election Assistance 
Commission, who have worked closely with our election 
officials.
    While we are now on the right track to secure our election 
infrastructure against cyber-attacks, new and different threats 
have arisen, including threats of physical harm to our election 
officials, their family, and their staff. Here is one example. 
``We will demand the truth and you will f-ing pay for your 
lying f-ing remarks, you

little liberal, f-ing RINO. We will f-ing take you out. F your 
family, F your life. Watch your f-ing back.''
    Threats like that left as a voicemail for a Republican 
election official in Michigan were received by election 
administrators across the country after the 2020 election and 
continue today. Not surprisingly, these threats are leading to 
additional serious concerns, such as an alarming number of 
election officials leaving the profession, which are 
contributing to the fragility of our democracy.
    The loss of institutional knowledge that accompanies such 
high turnover can mean that election officials are less aware 
of resources that can assist them in securing and running our 
elections. Large numbers of resignations can also result in 
more administrative mistakes, which can in turn fuel conspiracy 
theories and threats, continuing the cycle that has led to 
resignations in the first place.
    Just as election officials needed more help to protect 
election technology, they now need your help to keep them, 
their families, and their staff safe. In the Brennan Center's 
2023 election official survey, we found that almost three-
fourths of election officials believe that threats against them 
had increased in recent years and nearly half were concerned 
about the safety of their colleagues, and almost one in three 
had been personally threatened, harassed, or intimidated.
    Congress alone could not eliminate these problems, but 
Congress does play an important role in tackling these issues 
and spurring on others to do their part. For example, Congress 
should provide additional federal funding to state and local 
election officials and extend the federal prohibitions against 
doxing to include election workers.
    Congress should also work with federal departments and 
agencies to assure that they are effectively prioritizing 
election security and protecting our election officials as I 
have detailed in my written testimony. Thank you so much for 
your attention to this important matter. I look forward to your 
questions.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Howard was submitted for the 
record.]
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you very much. As is our 
practice with a brand new Member of the Committee--just 
kidding. She has to go preside. I will give my time to Ms. 
Butler and ask questions when the time arises. Thank you very 
much, Senator Butler.
    Senator Butler. Thank you so much, Chair Klobuchar. I was 
going to note that I had not been to any other Committee where 
the Chair yielded their time. I am going to spend more time in 
the Rules Committee.
    Senator Welch. Do not get used to it.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Butler. I do want to start by thanking Chair 
Klobuchar for her tireless efforts to shine a spotlight on the 
importance of preserving election integrity. Without efforts to 
protect this process, it is not an overstatement to worry about 
the future of democracy in our country, and I know our Chair is 
committed to that.
    I want to appreciate our witnesses, thanking Deputy 
Secretary Bena and Administrator Farley for doing the important 
work of safeguarding our elections every single day. 
Secretaries Fontes and

Schmidt, you both have personally experienced threats and 
harassments because of your public service.
    Thank you for being here with us to talk about what we can 
do to make sure that what you experienced never happens again. 
Attorney Howard, I appreciate the opportunity to learn from 
subject matter experts and want I really pick up my questions 
with where you left off in your testimony in reference to what 
you have provided to the Committee in your written materials.
    During a 2020 election, election workers in Shasta County, 
California received threats that alluded to being lynched or 
shot for their role in the election process. On Election Day, 
those same workers discovered that a camera had been planted 
near their election office to monitor their movements to and 
from the office, putting at risk important personal information 
like the type of car they drive, their license plate.
    Then in September 2022, California actually implemented a 
new law that would provide election materials--election workers 
with the option of keeping their home addresses confidential. 
It is critically important to this conversation to note that 
according to the voting rights lab, 80 percent of election 
officials are women, and their gender identities are often a 
factor and a subject of their harassment, and the threats that 
they received.
    Ms. Howard, I know that California's new law is just one 
small step at the state level to try and keep worker--election 
workers safe. You made reference to your written testimony. Can 
you enumerate a bit more what are the other ways that we can 
work to practically protect election workers?
    Ms. Howard. I think there are multiple steps that Congress 
can take to better protect our election workers, including our 
election officials in Shasta County, which, as you know, 
continue to face very challenging circumstances.
    Cathy Darling Allen is the Elections Director there and one 
of the best in the country, and it is very unfortunate to see 
what she and her staff have gone through. For instance, 
Congress could expand the prohibitions against doxing so that 
that federal prohibition includes election workers.
    This would make it a criminal penalty to expose the 
personal identifying information of an election worker such as 
their address, date of birth, etcetera, for the intent of 
enabling others to harass them or to go to their homes.
    You know, we are aware of another official in Anchorage, 
Alaska, who is responsible for certifying the election in 2020. 
He found a similar camera, typically used by hunters, mounted 
on a tree across from his home, pointed directly at his front 
door.
    These sorts of commonsense changes and bills would go a 
long way. I also would say that, you know, hearings such as 
this, where this Committee is increasing awareness of these 
problems, sends a strong message to our election officials that 
you have their back and helps other federal officials, state 
officials, and local officials understand that this is a 
priority.
    Senator Butler. Thank you so much. Really quickly, Mr. 
Farley, I wanted to just appreciate the role that you lifted up 
for local officials who are every day doing the ins and outs, 
nuts and bolts of

executing and securing the confidence and the execution of our 
elections.
    I just wanted to ask quickly if you could talk about the 
role of poll watchers, and if that is a relevant role to the 
how you execute and administer elections there in Rutherford 
County.
    Mr. Farley. Thank you, Senator. That is a good question. I 
mean, we welcome poll watchers. We have them in every election, 
whether they are local, state, or federal elections.
    I mean, that is something that is a part, and they should 
be able to carry their role out just like a poll worker or a 
candidate or anybody involved in the electoral process. They 
play a role. We have nothing to hide, so we welcome it.
    Senator Butler. Just quickly, Madam Chair, if I can follow-
up just with one quick question. Do you--you talked about the, 
you know, not having--having different conversations in 
Rutherford than one might expect if you were just listening to 
national media.
    I wonder, to follow-up on the question of poll watchers, is 
it your experience that, or have you found any sort of trend in 
fact, that would help to--reveal for the rest of us as we are 
trying to learn best practices, are there any--are there roles 
that poll watchers play in the sort of promulgation of election 
misinformation?
    Mr. Farley. Well, my involvement with poll watchers are--I 
mean cause mainly they are people in our community. I mean, a 
lot of them, we know each other. They are there to make sure 
that a person who appears to vote, at least they get a 
provisional ballot in case there is something that needs to be 
remedied, if they do not, you know, have the opportunity to 
vote.
    I think it is part it is being allow them to be able to 
execute their role. We instruct our officers that they are 
there for a reason and they are there as a cross-check.
    But in local elections, there are cross checks throughout 
our entire system in Tennessee, and I am assuming in all 50 
states. The poll watcher, you know, they come into our office, 
they pick up their credential, they identify themselves, and 
they play just as important role as the poll official.
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Very good. Thank you, Senator Butler. 
Next up, Senator Fischer.
    Senator Fischer. Thank you, Senator Klobuchar. Mr. Bena, 
Nebraska has taken significant steps to enhance the security of 
its election systems and equipment. Can you tell us more about 
these improvements and the threats that the improvements might 
help to mitigate?
    Mr. Bena. Thank you, Senator Fischer. As I described in my 
testimony, our first thing was to lock down our voter 
registration system, not only on the front end, but the back 
end, as that is the most valuable data we have as election 
officials.
    Using multi-factor authentication was the start of having a 
ID detection device on the back end that has been replicated in 
seven different states was the first step.
    In 2020, when we implemented new election equipment 
statewide, which was the first time we did since 2006, we did 
it in a closed loop system in which no aspect of the ballot 
counting or reporting process is connected to the internet.

    That was very important because, as we mentioned, you 
cannot hack paper. When you have a paper ballot from the start 
to the end, it provided confidence that our--no one could hack 
into our election process during the ballot counting process.
    Our expanded manual audit in 2022 was also a very important 
part of our strategy after 2020 to give our counties the data.
    Each county could do--have at least one precinct that they 
manually audited, so they knew that their ballot counting 
equipment matched what the election results that were 
certified.
    That three pronged approach has added a lot of strength and 
a lot of data, which is important for our election officials to 
take back to their constituents.
    Senator Fischer. Thank you. Mr. Farley, in your testimony, 
you mentioned a need for election related cybersecurity 
assistance for local election officials. What are the unique 
challenges that local election officials face in mitigating 
cybersecurity threats?
    Mr. Farley. Senator, I believe the biggest issue that we 
have, of course, when we receive emails, whether that be any 
communication from voters, you know, we have to, if there is an 
attachment, whether it be a PDF file or--I mean, we have to 
open those attachments.
    Phishing attempts are really something that is a concern or 
that we are really guarded against because we really have to 
examine every single and analyze every email because we do not 
know exactly, you know--but we cannot keep a person from 
requesting an absentee ballot or a change of address 
information or notification that they have moved outside of 
their--the county or their polling location.
    That is the biggest concern for us is really the 
safeguarding and making sure that we are, you know, being able 
to mitigate any and all phishing attempts.
    Senator Fischer. You know, the Federal Government does 
provide some assistance in identifying and mitigating the 
cybersecurity threats to election officials, primarily in the 
form of information sharing.
    Mr. Farley, can you tell us how information sharing could 
work better for local election officials, especially those that 
are in smaller election jurisdictions?
    Mr. Farley. ISAC is a great tool. I think a lot of times if 
it is the smaller jurisdictions, they need to make sure that 
they utilize those resources that are available. I think a lot 
of that--and then in Tennessee, our Secretary of State's Office 
does a tremendous job.
    We have some counties that that are so small, they may have 
6,000, 10,000 residents in the entire county, whereas you have 
metropolitan Nashville, Shelby County, and Memphis that have, 
you know, 800,000 registered voters.
    A lot of them making sure that they communicate that 
information via through ISAC or CISA, and those organizations, 
and making sure that the people on the small jurisdictions 
understand that is available to them.
    Senator Fischer. Mr. Bena, I understand that election 
officials often rely in part on federal agencies to share 
information about threats to election administration.

    Can you talk about your experiences with federal 
information sharing related to cybersecurity threats and what 
you think needs to be improved there?
    Mr. Bena. Nebraska is in region 7 of CISA, and we have a 
very good relationship with our counterparts with CISA.
    They help us a great deal with information sharing and 
providing assessments to our local county officials, and I am 
very thankful for their efforts. Most election officials have a 
security clearance so we can hear information on a federal 
level.
    I think CISA has heard from election officials that we 
would like to have more information that we could use on a day 
to day basis, how we can mitigate those challenges that we see 
from an election standpoint. The more information that can 
trickle down to us that is actionable, it will be the most 
helpful.
    Senator Fischer. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you very much. Senator Merkley.
    Senator Merkley. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Ms. 
Howard, your organization, the Brennan Center, counted that 
over the 10 year period, 2013 through 2023, states passed about 
100 restrictive voting laws, which most of those happened after 
the 2020 election?
    Ms. Howard. Thank you for the question, Senator. I do not 
work on that specific project, but I will talk to my 
colleagues, and we can get you that answer.
    Senator Merkley. Well, let me ask you this, this question. 
Many of these bills just created some kind of bias, like making 
it harder for people on Native American reservations to vote or 
a limited number of drop boxes per county.
    It was far fewer per person in high population counties 
than low population counties, things of that nature. Have you 
had any sense whether that--those type of laws affect people's 
sense of the fairness of elections, or their confidence in 
elections, or the difficulty of administering a fair chance for 
every person to vote?
    Ms. Howard. I think election officials in particular can 
get frustrated with administrative limitations that are 
perceived to be partisan.
    You know, election officials, even if they are elected 
officials on a partisan ballot, are election officials, 
especially at the local level, administer elections in a 
nonpartisan manner.
    That is something that is very core to what they do and how 
they administer elections.
    Senator Merkley. Okay. Thank you. Let me turn to you, Mr. 
Fontes. You noted in your written testimony about having a go 
bag ready. I think you cited the case of the woman whose dogs 
were poisoned as a kind of example of intimidation.
    I guess I am trying to get a sense of how that is really 
diminishing the ability to have--to recruit people. Some of you 
mentioned, and I think Mr. Schmidt, you mentioned this as well, 
like how many folks are retiring or leaving and losing 
expertise.
    Is it difficult to recruit new people, or are new people 
saying no, no, no, I am happy to jump in and go through the 
classes and come up to speed?

    Mr. Fontes. Thank you for the question, Senator. It is 
really an issue of common sense. Are you willing to jump into a 
civil servants type of a paid job where your life and your 
family's health are going to be threatened and the work is--
that you do, regardless of the amount of integrity and honor 
with which you execute, the work is going to be questioned 
because of conspiracy theories and lies.
    It almost defies common sense that we have people who want 
to get into these jobs, but for the fact that these are the 
jobs that preserve our democracy. These are the jobs that are 
our democracy. I cannot see anybody having an easy time to 
recruit folks into this--the nature of this work.
    It has made it incredibly difficult, particularly in, and I 
can speak for Arizona, particularly in greater Arizona. In a 
lot of our much smaller communities, where we do not have 
larger population centers.
    The rural areas where that expertise is, and that longevity 
is particularly valuable. I think rural America, generally 
speaking, is probably suffering a lot more because of these 
circumstances.
    Senator Merkley. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Schmidt, did you also 
see the difficulty in recruiting folks?
    Mr. Schmidt. Yes. While we have talked about, and I 
mentioned the challenges that Pennsylvania faces with county 
level election administration turnover, I think--and we have 
talked about it at the state level as well, I think it is 
important to be mindful of the fact that it is precinct level 
election workers who are really the ones that make sure you can 
cast your vote and have your vote counted.
    If you have in-person voting on Election Day and they are 
in no way protected from any of this, you have people who show 
up to vote who may have seen things or heard things and 
sometimes take it out on them when they are, at least in 
Pennsylvania, working a 14 hour day essentially in a volunteer 
basis to make sure that they can have----
    Senator Merkley. Thank you. Thank you. I want to slip in 
one more question. You talked about Pennsylvania added vote by 
mail. My State of Oregon pioneered vote by mail. People came to 
love it. Every county, both sides of the aisle. But it has been 
controversial. Why did Pennsylvania decide to add a vote by 
mail?
    Mr. Schmidt. Well, vote by mail passed in Pennsylvania in 
2019. A lot of people think because it came into effect in 
2020, that it was related to the COVID environment, but it 
really was not. It was a way of making voting more accessible 
for Pennsylvanians.
    If you were a police officer working a 12 hour shift, if 
you are a firefighter, working a 12 hour shift, you would not 
have had the ability to vote on Election Day in person, nor 
could you vote by absentee ballot because you were not absent 
from your county on Election Day.
    Senator Merkley. I found--I will just do a closing comment 
here. But when I was first running for election, we were in the 
middle of that conversion in Oregon. My first thought was I 
really like the tradition of everybody voting together.
    But I started knocking on doors. I am running for state 
legislature, and at every door I talked to people, they were 
like, and by

the way, I really like this vote by mail. Why is it? Well, I do 
not have to worry about the rain. I do not have to figure out 
this place to park. I have got a bad hip, and I do not have to 
stand in line.
    In Oregon, we have referendums. I do not know if you have 
them in Pennsylvania, but there really can be very complex. 
They are like, we love studying the referendums at the kitchen 
table and bringing our children into that, that rhythm of 
showing them what it is all about.
    Anyway, there were--I quickly learned how--why it was 
popular, and I had a little bit change of view on it. Hey, 
thank you all very much for sharing your experiences.
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Senator Britt.
    Senator Britt. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I join Ranking 
Member Fischer and my Republican colleagues in welcoming 
Senator Butler to the Committee. Thank you all for being here. 
You are taking time to be in front of this important Committee 
on this important topic.
    Mister, is it Bena? Is that how I say it? I am proud I got 
it right. Excellent. Your testimony discussed ongoing work 
related to cybersecurity and our elections. Our response to 
cyber threats remains one of the most important issues that we 
must address in election administration and the security space.
    Your testimony mentioned a number of steps that your state 
has taken in that regard, including the implementation of 
multi-factor authentication to prevent unauthorized access to 
the voter registration systems and the installation of computer 
intrusion detection devices in order to detect any type of 
malicious activity. I want you to talk a little bit more about 
that.
    Can you discuss how the cybersecurity improvement steps 
that you have taken in Nebraska have or could be replicated in 
other states, as well as other innovative steps that you think 
states around the country should consider to better secure 
their election systems and against cyber threats?
    Mr. Bena. The steps that Nebraska took are not anything 
new. Every state had the opportunity to have an Albert Sensor, 
and I believe all 50 states put in an Albert Sensor at some 
point.
    What was unique in Nebraska, it was the first time it was 
ever done on the servers of a private elections vendor versus 
on a state network. Also, the multi-factor authentication I 
think we are seeing in all aspects of our cyber life now, and 
that was an important aspect that we are also pushing down to 
just--to our local officials to do that on their normal day to 
day operations, on their normal computers, not just in the 
voter registration system.
    I think it is very important as election officials to 
challenge CISA and other federal agencies in charge of our 
cybersecurity efforts to say what is next. We do not want to 
rest on our laurels, but we want to find out what is the next 
thing that we need to do so we can stay ahead of the threats 
that are facing us.
    Senator Britt. When you made that choice and went with a 
private vendor, can you talk about what the decision point was 
there?
    Mr. Bena. Well, the--many states have a private vendor that 
handles their statewide voter registration system. At the time 
that the Albert Sensors were being offered, it was for state 
networks.

    When we realized that we could not, we did not need an 
Albert Sensor provided by DHS on the state's network, as the 
state already has two sensors in place, to protect the Voter 
Registration System. We worked with our vendor as well as the 
ISAC to say, can we think outside the box a little bit, figure 
this out, and this was the first time it had ever been done.
    Every state that uses our same statewide voter registration 
system, that vendor has applied that to theirs. It is an 
important step to make sure that our election, the most 
valuable data we have, our voter registration data is 
protected.
    Senator Britt. Absolutely. Thank you. Mr. Farley, your 
testimony also discussed the importance of cybersecurity 
initiatives as it relates to elections and election 
administration.
    In your experience, what role does and should information 
sharing and collaboration between states and localities around 
the country play in enhancing our response to election related 
cyber threats? What, if any, improvements do you think could be 
made in that regard?
    Mr. Farley. Well, I think anytime that you can share 
information amongst states is good. I know in Tennessee we are 
in the process now as far, as voter registration lists, I mean 
we are partnering with Alabama, making sure because there is a 
lot of people who have moved from Tennessee to Alabama, and 
vice versa. Making sure that people that are registered----
    Senator Britt. Duplicates and----
    Mr. Farley. Exactly. You know, and I know that we are--
Tennessee, we have seven states that border our state. In 
working with those partnerships with our neighbors is always a 
good thing.
    Senator Britt. Yes. We appreciate that our Secretary of 
State obviously has made this a priority. Thank you for working 
on that with him.
    Mr. Farley. But I think anytime you can share information, 
especially in keeping your databases clean and protected as 
possible, is very important.
    Senator Britt. Absolutely. What role do you see for the 
Federal Government with respect to helping states and 
localities better prepare for and respond to cyber threats to 
elections and election administration?
    Mr. Farley. Well, I am a firm believer that--I mean, I know 
what is best for my community and I know what is best for, you 
know, my county. On a global or national level, the 
cybersecurity is something that we cannot--you know, we have no 
role in.
    I think that is very important that the Federal Government 
take an active role, especially funding, because we are doing 
great today, but tomorrow is a different day. There always--got 
to be one, two, three steps ahead because we cannot--as Mr. 
Bena made a comment just a second ago, we cannot rest on our 
laurels. We have always got to be actively ahead of the target.
    Senator Britt. Thank you. Thank you.
    Senator Padilla. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Senator Fischer. I thought you were going to fill in. 
Senator Padilla.
    Senator Padilla. All right. To me, here we go. Thank you 
very much. To our witnesses, not to get to too far into the 
weeds, Sen

ator, but as a former Secretary of State, happy to talk Albert 
Sensors with you any time.
    The importance of not just federal, state, but federal, 
state, local working relationship, particularly when it comes 
to the voter registration databases which are centralized 
statewide, but all it takes is one intrusion from one county, 
many small counties, under-resourced counties, to really wreak 
havoc here.
    I would also take a moment to make a plug for automatic 
voter registration. You know, there is sometimes a debate of 
how easy it should be to register your vote or not, or to 
update your voter registration or not.
    But I can tell you, coming from a state that implemented 
it, the most populous state with the most voters than any other 
state, it has done wonders for the accuracy of our voter rolls 
when voters on a regular basis are either updating their 
information through DMV or just directly, or verifying the 
accuracy of their information.
    It helps from an administration standpoint. Relieves 
candidates' frustration of, you know, knocking on doors when 
there is nobody there anymore, that sort of thing. But that 
aside, I digress. I do want to get to a couple of serious 
topics in my time remaining.
    One is our witnesses and our colleagues obviously have 
spoken at length about the problems that state and local 
election offices are having with recruiting and retention of 
election workers.
    Many times, particularly in smaller jurisdictions, offices 
are underfunded and understaffed as it is. But now, in the 
context of increasing physical and cyber threats, election 
workers are being asked to take on more and more responsibility 
to administer and defend the bedrock of our democracy.
    It should be no wonder that we are seeing the turnover 
rates that we are in jurisdictions across the country. Now, 
obviously, we want to do more from a funding standpoint, 
support standpoint to address these issues, and proud to be 
part of Senator Klobuchar's legislation in this regard.
    But I also wanted to highlight a practice, a best practice, 
I think that comes out of California, and particularly in my 
home county of Los Angeles, when they transitioned to not only 
the model of voting with automatic vote by mail delivery, in-
person options, early voting, etcetera.
    They also integrated a component that allows county 
employees from other departments and agencies, not elections, 
to be temporarily reassigned during that election season to 
assist with election administration. It had the effect of 
having more stability, cycle to cycle, of who those poll 
workers and other election workers are, with an added degree of 
professionalism, because we are not just relying on volunteers 
with big hearts.
    They did an enormous service in the past, but I think we 
are on a new way of doing this. The workers themselves feel 
confident in their role and safe in their role with the 
training and support from the county. The question, with all 
that being said, is for Ms. Howard.
    Do you think this is a good tool? I think so. If so, do you 
think it makes sense to try to replicate that elsewhere?
    Ms. Howard. Yes, and yes. I think this is a really 
important program, and I think that what it does is really 
important. Election

officials value other poll workers that have election, 
especially local county government, experience.
    This program that allows for existing and known Government 
employees to come and serve and help the L.A. County Election 
Director as elections expand, and when they need help right 
around elections, and then contract in between cycles is a 
great process and absolutely should be replicated around the 
country.
    Senator Padilla. Thank you. I should also make an addition 
to that, that it is good muscle memory when you have an 
unexpected special election, for example, to be able to ramp up 
quickly and professionally.
    Another topic I will squeeze in the last minute here. Now, 
threats levied against civil servants who work to ensure the 
smooth operation of our elections are fundamentally un-
American. I know that some members of the panel before us and 
their families have been subject to such threats.
    I have spoken with election officials back home that are 
asking local government funding for bulletproof glass in 
elections offices. Really, that is where we have come. Now, the 
Department of Justice has begun to act in response to these 
threats. Since its creation in 2021, the Election Threats Task 
Force at the DOJ has received over 2,000 complaints.
    I think that is an undercount, but 2,000 official. At least 
15 cases have been federally prosecuted. Now, while that is 
serious, federal prosecution, 15 is such a small number. So 
many more that have not. Now going to trial is obviously 
costly, time consuming, requires resources not just for the 
Federal Government, but the state and locals as well.
    Questions for Secretary of Fontes. Are there steps that the 
task force can take, short of increase prosecutions, to 
increase their effectiveness? For example, one of the 
recommendations in the task force is to engage in more knock 
and talks, if you are familiar with that.
    Mr. Fontes. Thank you for the question, Senator, and I am 
aware of that as a law enforcement technique. I was a 
prosecutor for a time myself, and I do think that not only the 
Department of Justice and its law enforcement branches, but 
also in conjunction with state and local law enforcement 
officials, should have a much more robust campaign towards 
initial investigations and initial contacts in order to start 
the investigations on these.
    We have seen, and in some of the cases personally pertinent 
to me, that that sort of thing has helped and has defrayed any 
other necessary prosecution or has really stood to deter folks.
    Now, obviously, I am one of the last people you are going 
to find who is looking for the heavy hand of Government to come 
down on folks for what may be perceived as a conflict between 
law enforcement and the First Amendment.
    But the reality is you do not have a First Amendment right 
to threaten people who are just doing their jobs, especially 
not in a population where the vast majority of whom, you know, 
get threatened because of their gender, and a lot of those 
threats are gender related. That is really problematic.
    I agree with the premise. I agree with the notion. I agree 
also that not just a little bit more of that, but also 
potentially more pub

lic promotion of the prosecutions, many of which have been 
very, very successful.
    The DOJ tends to be a little bit modest, I think, 
sometimes. But the reality is, if folks out there understand 
that this sort of behavior is criminal and will result in 
prosecution, then hopefully we can get a lot of that anti-
American activity out of our civil society and get back to the 
notion of winners, winning and losers trying harder next time 
instead of having to worry about political violence in our 
civil space.
    Senator Padilla. I agree. I will remind us all that while 
the pre-clearance requirement of the Federal Voting Rights Act 
is no longer in effect, the balance is, and that includes the 
right of an eligible citizen to participate in our elections 
without fear of intimidation or unnecessary barriers.
    The intimidation was upon was feared to be coming from 
administrators or Governments, not from our fellow citizens. 
But we are in a different day now, and it is--I will make 
Senator Merkley proud, yet another plug for vote by mail or 
vote from home.
    Because when you do that, you are far less risk of chaos in 
a polling place and ease the burden on elections workers 
themselves. Thank you all for that. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you, Senator Padilla. Senator 
Welch.
    Senator Welch. Thank you, Madam Chair. All those California 
reforms, I think we have them in Vermont and they are working 
pretty good. But, you know, to Mr. Fontes, to Mr. Schmidt, Mr. 
Bena, to Mr. Farley, and Ms. Howard, I want to express my 
gratitude. You have got a hard job.
    But what I heard in the testimony each of you gave was your 
job has clear definition, make it as easy as possible for 
people to vote and make certain everybody's vote is counted. 
Who would have thought that turns into a situation where a 
person's dog would be poisoned? I mean, it is really, really 
terrible.
    All of us here right now were present on January 6th. Of 
course, that has not really ended, is what you are saying. But 
what I find so inspiring about each of you is your dedication 
to respecting the will of the people you serve. Let them 
decide. It is as simple as that and make it as easy as possible 
for them to vote.
    That is why it is dismaying and discouraging to hear the 
stories about how people that work with you--and I am sure you 
are really concerned about it every day, and they are close to 
being volunteers many of them. In Vermont, most are. Get 
threatened or have their dog poisoned.
    That is just really, really astonishing. I want to just 
express to you my gratitude, because it is your kind of 
leadership and civic sense of responsibility that has to 
overtake the folks who think that they can win an election by 
the things that they do after. But I will start with you, Mr. 
Fontes.
    What can we do--how--you mentioned, I mean, elaborate a 
little bit about this, about the importance of people being 
held accountable who do, in fact, interfere with election 
workers. Just explain a little bit why you think that 
ultimately would be beneficial. Go ahead.

    Mr. Fontes. Well, Senator, thank you for the question. 
Accountability is always--I mean, that is foundational----
    Senator Welch. Right----
    Mr. Fontes [continuing]. to the way that civil society 
works. We have a criminal justice system that holds folks 
accountable for criminal behavior. We have a civil justice 
system that holds folks for civil penalties if they do wrongs 
there.
    Senator Welch. Just the basics.
    Mr. Fontes. There is no reason in the world why we should 
not hold people accountable who are attacking our democracy 
through the very people who are administering our democracy. 
The notion of accountability and personal responsibility for 
your bad actions, for your interference with basic civil 
duties.
    I think it is crazy that we would not want or that someone 
might think that we would not want to hold people accountable 
for threatening civil servants.
    Senator Welch. Right. Well, thank you. I agree with that. 
Mr. Schmidt, you have been talking a little bit about the 
difficulty of recruiting and retaining folks that help monitor 
our elections.
    What are some of the specific things you think we could do 
that might help there? How much of this do you think is a 
result of the kind of fear and intimidation? Because in 
Vermont, we do not have that many poll workers, but it is folks 
who have a little flexibility in their schedule.
    They show up and they feel really good. They are seeing 
their neighbors. They feel like they are contributing to our 
democracy by doing their part and they enjoy it. But that is 
not the same as when they show up, they get harassed and 
threatened. Maybe you can give us some suggestions on how we 
can change availability.
    Mr. Schmidt. Yes, I think it is a couple of things. It is 
important that we support them and also that they feel 
supported. That when they are under attack or being unfairly 
maligned in some way, that others speak out regardless of 
party.
    I think that is a very important part of all of this, 
regardless of party, to defend the people who are responsible 
for running elections and being so irresponsibly maligned. That 
is not necessarily about dollars.
    Those dollars have played an important role. It is not 
about changing laws in and of themselves to protect one person 
because of their role or another. Although that also plays an 
important role. It is also, I think, to make sure that they are 
valued and supported and not just left hanging out there in the 
face of all of this ugliness.
    Senator Welch. Yes. Mr. Bena, you, Nebraska, we all love 
Senator Fischer. She is bragging about Nebraska all the time. 
Small town values. I mean, you have heard some of your 
colleagues talk about the dog being poisoned. That letter is 
how you wrote--I hope--are you having those kind of challenges 
in Nebraska as well?
    Mr. Bena. Actually, we are not.
    Senator Welch. Good.
    Mr. Bena. Actually, we are not. We--in 2020, many of our 
poll workers wanted to stay home because of the uncertainty, 
and we started what was called the step up campaign, which 
allowed to

say give your parents or grandparents a break and serve in this 
election.
    What we saw from that was that not only after 2020 did 
their parents and grandparents come back, but the kids and 
grand kids wanted to serve along with them. We have a great--we 
have a great bench of people wanting to be poll workers.
    Not to say that, you know, people are going to leave 
elections and what have you. But for our election officials 
that have left and retired, a great number of them come back 
and to consult their replacement.
    Between that and the training we do with the Secretary of 
State's Office, we are very lucky to have the county election 
officials and a backbench of poll workers to support them, so.
    Senator Welch. That is fantastic. It is like it is 
intergenerational. Thank you very much. I yield back.
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Senator Welch, I 
guess I would start with you where Senator Welch left off. I 
was telling, Mr. Bena, I was telling Senator Fischer how nice 
your testimony was at the end where you talked about your 
ballot is ready. Could you talk about how you build trust?
    This idea of bringing in younger poll workers is something 
I am sure all of our Secretaries of State are doing. Beyond 
that, talk about how you build trust, use your position to 
build trust in our elections with voters.
    Mr. Bena. Two things that I will point out. Secretary Evnen 
and myself accept many invitations all over our state to people 
that want to talk about our election process, whether it be the 
testing we do before the elections or the manual audit we 
conduct after our elections, and everything that is done in 
between.
    Communicating on a local level, on a personal level, one to 
one, helps in that effort. But to those that still want to 
question the integrity of our election process, we recommend to 
them, become a poll worker.
    Immerse yourself into the process and see just how 
dedicated our election officials are to the integrity and 
safety of our elections.
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you. Mr. Farley, Ms. Howard, 
both of in your testimony mentioned the importance of federal 
funding and how it is important to election administration 
security. I really appreciated your words, Mr. Farley.
    Way back, Senator Lankford and I did a lot of work on this 
with the paper ballot and also with the cyber protection and 
the like. Could you both talk about the importance of federal 
funding for elections?
    Mr. Farley. We just--in Tennessee, we just used HAVA funds 
for--to replace DREs with the verified voter paper audit trail.
    That is a great resource for HAVA funds that we just had. I 
think anytime you can fund needs, whether that be through state 
funding or federal funding, is a good thing because a lot of 
times--up until recently, a lot of times elections was not 
really a priority to be funded on a local or state level.
    I think any time that we have funds, we have to make sure 
that we have--be good stewards of those funds and put them to 
good use where benefits all the voters in our jurisdiction.

    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Okay. Thank you. Ms. Howard--the two 
Tennessee people at the end.
    Ms. Howard. Thank you for the question, Senator. I think 
federal funding is absolutely critical. We have seen the huge 
transition across the country from paperless voting machines to 
now, such as in Mr. Farley's County, to paper based voting 
systems, which is a critical election security component.
    In many states, for instance, Pennsylvania, that would not 
have happened, but for the additional federal funding that has 
been provided. There are new additional expenses that election 
officials are now facing.
    Some of the physical security enhancements that Senator 
Welch talked about earlier, the bulletproof glass, the 
structural changes to include or additional doors of entry or 
exit as a physical security improvement, we estimate at the 
Brennan Center will cost about $300 million across the country.
    We estimate that election officials will need another $300 
million to protect against insider threats that are, again, 
somewhat a new for election officials who need to deal with 
them so we can have keycard access to critical systems such as 
voting, voting equipment, and a log of everyone that has access 
to them.
    There are these new expenses, and we still have the ongoing 
expenses associated with maintaining the voting equipment, 
which we estimated will cost about $600 million over 5 years.
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Okay. Thank you. I would note for the 
Committee that Secretary Fontes has made the biggest sacrifice. 
He could have been at the Diamondbacks game tonight. Is that 
correct, Secretary Fontes?
    Mr. Fontes. Regretfully, but honorable, yes. I am happy to 
be here with you.
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Okay. Very good. I think, who did you 
give your ticket too?
    Mr. Fontes. I gave it to my partner, Nicole. She and my 
mom, I hope, will enjoy a Diamondbacks victory.
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Okay. Well, I will be--we will all be 
watching. As you approach this next year's elections, how do 
you anticipate addressing the ongoing challenges with the 
safety of election workers and officials? What do you think we 
should be doing to help? How are you preparing them?
    Mr. Fontes. Well, we are really engaging in a kitchen sink 
approach in all areas. We are coordinating a lot more closely 
with state, local, and federal officials. One of the things 
that I mentioned was a tabletop exercise that we are going to 
have in the middle of next month where CISA is going to be 
helping us.
    A tabletop, if you do not know, is where we get a whole 
bunch of folks together, run through a scenario, and then we 
throw sort of problems at the team. That includes not just 
local, state, and federal law enforcement folks as part of the 
exercise who do not know what the exercise is going to be, but 
also our communications staff, our logistics and transportation 
people, our own IT folks from across the state, county level, 
and state level as well.
    Those trainings are critically important. Some of the other 
things that we are hoping we can do is engage more closely with 
the physical security agents and the cybersecurity agents that 
CISA pro

vides. This is a service that CISA has that I think is 
essential, critical, and should not be subject to any sorts of 
maybe potential federal issues when it comes to your next phase 
of negotiations in budgets. Those folks need to be online all 
the time.
    We are hoping to be able to talk with folks at these 
federal agencies to maintain open these lines of communication 
on those folks who are continuing to help us prepare. We are 
communicating a lot more clearly now with the Arizona 
Counterterrorism Information Center and many of our other 
partners.
    But more particularly to our folks who are out there in the 
field, we are enhancing and diversifying the kinds of training 
that we are allowing and giving to our elections officials, 
because it is that training for those people who are on the 
front lines, at the polling places, at our warehouses, at our 
vote centers, that is what really matters because they are the 
ones that are facing it full front.
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Okay. Last, Secretary Schmidt, with 
this issue of turnover and people leaving in every state in the 
country. Mr. Bena talked about what he has done in Nebraska. 
You want to talk a little bit about how you are going to handle 
that going forward in Pennsylvania?
    Mr. Schmidt. Yes. With the turnover, we found it necessary, 
and the Shapiro administration has put resources behind it to 
build a team of trainers so we can help train new election 
administrators in different counties in Pennsylvania, to 
produce training materials for them to rely on.
    I know when I became an Election Commissioner in 
Philadelphia, I was elected in 2011 and 2012, the Presidential 
was my first election. It is a very difficult lift any 
election, let alone being brand new and facing a Presidential 
election. In our case, one of the biggest cities and one of the 
biggest swing states in America.
    Having those materials, Pennsylvania has one uniform 
election code, but counties have flexibility at the county 
level to administer elections. We have to make sure that there 
is sort of county flexibility built into it, but to provide 
them with all the resources they need and also to facilitate 
communication between election administrators.
    Some of them in some counties have been around for a long 
time and they are more than eager to share their experience to 
help other election administrators in other counties. 
Pennsylvania or any state is either going to be successful or 
not based on one county or another. It takes all of us.
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Okay, thank you. Last but not least, 
you know you are missing the World Series, Secretary Fontes, 
but we do have a member of the Congressional baseball team who 
looks the closest to a professional baseball player on the 
team. That would be Senator Ossoff. So that is my exchange for 
you.
    Senator Ossoff. Grading on a serious curve here in the 
Senate on that one, so. Ms. Howard, a federal judge just ruled 
that Georgia's state legislature had passed electoral maps 
which diluted the participation and power of black voters in 
Georgia.
    The same state legislature in Georgia passed a law enabling 
partisan appointees at the state election board to take over 
local county election boards. The same state legislature passed 
several bills

reconstituting county election boards, and in so doing, 
removing black members from those election boards.
    What message, in your opinion, does it send to the 
electorate when efforts are made to dilute the voting power of 
black voters and remove black county election board members 
from those local election boards?
    Ms. Howard. I can connect you with my colleagues who have 
worked closely on the Georgia legislation and what is happening 
in Georgia, because I am not familiar with the details. But I 
am lucky to work with the former State Elections Director Chris 
Harvey for the Secretary of State, who works with us on the 
Committee for Safe and Secure Elections, which is a group of 
former law enforcement and election officials that work to help 
local officials protect election officials and voters from 
threats and violence.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you. Ms. Howard and Mr. Schmidt, 
Secretary Schmidt, in your experience, when you have 
substantial turnover as a result of threats against election 
workers and board members, as we have seen in Georgia, 
tremendous stress and uncertainty associated with a rapidly 
changing election law.
    Those changes, Mr. Schmidt, by the way, in Georgia, based 
largely on conspiracy theories about voter fraud. When you have 
that kind of turnover among election workers and when you have 
the partisan political reconstitution of county election 
boards, what is the practical impact on the administration of 
elections?
    Mr. Schmidt. It is a very dangerous dynamic, Senator, 
because when you have those experienced people leave and they 
are replaced with others with less experience, those new people 
are more likely to make a mistake.
    The mistake, as I mentioned, is perceived in a way that is 
intentional and malicious and partisan and trying to 
advantage--to sort of help or not help some other candidate, 
which only feeds the sort of accusations to undermine 
confidence in elections.
    I want to add one other thing, and it is something we 
really have not sort of talked about. I think it is important 
that a lot of these accusations come allegedly from a place of 
concern about election integrity.
    I think we should take election integrity very, very 
seriously. Whenever we encounter accusations, we should run 
them down and we should investigate them to the hilt to show 
exactly how safe and secure our elections are, and make sure 
that we do not sort of brush them aside.
    There is no shortage of absurd stories out there. I 
certainly cannot begin to share the number in Philadelphia that 
we experienced in 2020 that were--again, it is one of those 
things, if it were a movie, you would walk out. It was just so 
dumb, but a lot of people believe it because there have been so 
many changes, as you mentioned.
    Many of those changes have only made elections more safe 
and secure. But along with those changes, you end up with 
people having a lot of questions. Those are the people I think 
are mainly being taken advantage of in this environment.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Secretary Schmidt and Secretary 
Fontes. Those conspiracy theories about massive voter fraud in

Georgia have also been the basis for these mass challenges to 
the eligibility of voters by private, apparently partisan 
groups.
    Let me just share with you, for example, in Gwinnett County 
alone in Georgia, in the lead up to the 2022 general election, 
one county elections official reported that 5 to 10 election 
employees had to work daily for several weeks to process these 
overwhelmingly frivolous challenges to the legitimacy of voter 
registration.
    There were 65,000 voter registrations challenged in just 
eight counties in the lead up to that election. One group 
coordinated challenges to 364,000 voter registrations across 
Georgia in the lead up to that election in Gwinnett County, 
which I just mentioned, 37,000 challenges, overwhelmingly 
frivolous.
    The impact on the morale of the electorate to know that 
there are private entities out there who are working day and 
night to undermine their access to the ballot, to challenge 
effectively their rights as a citizen, it is demoralizing to 
the public, and it occupies all of these election 
administration resources, processing these frivolous attempts 
to disenfranchise people.
    What is your impression of the impact of that kind of 
practice on election administration?
    Mr. Fontes. Thank you for the question, Senator. We hear of 
a DDoS attack against an electronic system where hackers will 
come in and absolutely flood the system with digital attacks so 
the system cannot work anymore.
    What you have described and what is real is an analog DDoS 
attack against our offices. But it does not just come in the 
form of frivolous complaints based on lies and conspiracy 
theories. It comes in overly voluminous and unnecessary public 
record requests that have absolutely nothing at their end.
    Now, I am a big fan of transparency. In some cases, people 
have said some of my policies call for radical transparency, 
and so I am not speaking against legitimate public record 
requests. But the idea here is not so much what the nature of 
these attacks are, whether they are serious, significant, and 
voluminous complaints, as you have indicated, or these other 
kinds of requests.
    This is a coordinated effort to undermine the democracy 
that upholds our Republic. It is a coordinated national attack 
against democracy in America. It is an emergent 
authoritarianism. Some would even say, as I have said, it is an 
emergent method to move us toward fascism in this Nation. These 
little bits and pieces, the thousand paper cuts that we are 
feeling as you have described, undermine our systems.
    This is why now more than ever, we need the federal support 
that we have all asked for. I would agree 100 percent with Mr. 
Farley. We need sustained and consistent and robust federal 
assistance in--the building up of our security systems across 
the United States of America. I think Nebraska's move towards 
getting all of their private providers on the Albert Sensors, 
which we talked about earlier today, is a great move toward 
that.
    What you are seeing here is all of us in many, many ways 
speaking toward the same thing. This system was designated 
critical infrastructure in 2017 because it is. You would not 
want to underfund the dam that you live half a mile down river 
from when you live at the bottom of the valley.

    You would not want to underfund the bridge that you cross 
over that river to get to work every day on. But we are in so 
many ways not really paying as close attention to this 
particular part of our democracy. It is also a combination of 
the accountability that I spoke to earlier with your colleague 
from the Department of Justice.
    At the end of it all, as Secretary Schmidt pointed out, we 
spent a lot of time explaining, but the bad guys have shifted 
the burden. They have basically asked us to prove a negative, 
prove that you did not commit fraud without bringing forward 
any evidence and without being held accountable for their lies 
in the first place.
    The tactic is lie, and then when you are held accountable 
to provide evidence of that lie, shift to another lie, shift to 
another accusation, shift to something else. That is where we 
are at. I think we need to be very, very much more robust in 
attacking the illegitimate attacks for what they are, 
conspiracy theories and lies designed to undermine our 
democracy.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Secretary Fontes.
    Chairwoman Klobuchar. Thank you, Senator Ossoff. Thank you 
for hosting us for the Rules Committee field hearing that we 
had in Georgia on some of these very issues a few years ago. 
The first time we brought the Rules Committee on the road, I 
guess for decades.
    He was a good host. I do not think we have any other 
remaining questions. I want to thank Ranking Member Fischer, 
she went back to catch the next vote, and Members of the 
Committee for what I hope you all saw was a very productive 
hearing.
    I want to thank the witnesses for your really good 
testimony and answers. I thought the questions were good. I 
think that today's testimony underscores the importance of your 
work and your courage in doing your work, and also some of the 
solutions that are right in front of us.
    The first is, of course, making sure that our local elected 
officials and our local election volunteers are protected in 
whatever way we can with local, state, federal law enforcement, 
and resources, including the cyber protection that you so well 
referred to, Mr. Farley, for our elections.
    The second is recruiting new poll workers, something that 
became really clear during the pandemic. But I loved Mr. Bena's 
idea, and I am sure there are many other jurisdictions doing 
the same thing. But I think we can give voice to this, 
especially the youngest Senator can give voice to it.
    Is that still true? Yes, exactly. The need to recruit young 
poll workers and a new generation of poll workers, I think 
should be a good message on a national level, a bipartisan 
message.
    I appreciated that. Then also just the need to continue the 
federal funding and to make clear this is a bipartisan, 
nonpartisan piece of the work that we do. I want to thank you 
for what you have done.
    The hearing record is going to remain open for one week, 
and we are adjourned. Thank you.
    [Whereupon, at 4:45 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]


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