The State of Election Security in 2024
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I'm Andrew Schwartz, and you're listening to The Truth of the Matter, a podcast by CSIS where we break down the top policy issues of the day and talk with the people that can help us best understand what's really going on.

This is a very special episode because it's a crossover between the truth of the matter and my other favorite podcast, the Smart Women, Smart Power podcast, hosted by my dear friend and colleague, Kathleen McInnis, who is here with us. Dr. McInnis, so good to be with you. Thank you. So great to be here.

We have with us one of our all-time favorite guests, Suzanne Spaulding, who is the director of our Defending Democratic Institutions project here at CSIS and a senior advisor to CSIS. Suzanne, welcome. Obviously, we got to talk about election security. We're on election eve now. I think it's about three weeks till election day. In your mind, what is the biggest threat to election security currently?

Andrew and Kathleen, it's wonderful to be on with both of you, my esteemed colleagues. Really pleased and looking forward to the conversation. And Andrew, you know, we're talking, everybody talks about Election Day, but of course, the election has begun. Yeah. In many states, we've already started with early voting.

And I think one of the things that's really important, as we've read so many articles and heard reports about threats to election officials and the sort of general context in which political rhetoric is increasingly violent and extreme, that Americans need to understand that their election officials and state and local officials

have worked for many, many, many years to have plans in place and be able to secure our voting places, you know, where elections are taking place now and through into election day. And they should be confident that they will be safe and secure when they go to vote. They should also be confident in the integrity of that voting process.

And I know we'll get into that, but I think those are two really important messages to get across, even as we think and work on issues that may be of concern, particularly post-election day, with respect to the environment that we face today.

Well, Jen Easterly, who's the director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, says there's no chance a foreign adversary can change U.S. election results. So do you agree with that statement? If so, why? If not, why not?

Well, you know, I'm always nervous about saying, you know, anything is 0%. And I don't think that's really what Jen was saying. But because we have so many built-in checks and balances in the system and so much resilience and redundancy, I wouldn't disagree with her statement. I think it would be highly, highly, highly unlikely that they could

change the outcome at a national level of our presidential election. And again, that is both because of all of the measures that our state and local elected officials take to secure the machinery of the voting process, but it's also because we have all across the country in all of our jurisdictions teams from both parties

who oversee this process, who are there to help in overseeing every step along the way to make sure that Americans can have confidence in the integrity of this. Jen also bases her conclusion on that where we are today, which is that I think the statistic is 98% of Americans will have paper ballots.

that can be audited and counted if there are questions that are raised. So there's just so many processes in place that it would be very hard for an adversary to buy altering votes in the voting machines, for example, to achieve something like that. Suzanne, what about the perceptions out there, the misinformation, disinformation surrounding the election? And what should we really be worried about? What are some of the key things we need to be worried about?

So the thing I am most worried about is the disinformation designed to undermine the public's trust in the integrity of that process. Right. We know that our adversaries, Russia particularly, most vigorously, but also Iran and China,

are pushing information operations, propaganda, disinformation that is designed to undermine the public's trust in democracy and in our institutions. And that includes in the integrity of that voting process.

Unfortunately, we also have a lot of discussion out there domestically about raising doubts about the legitimacy of our election process, whether it is false allegations of vast numbers of ineligible voters who are voting, which we've never seen any evidence of or proof of, to whether officials are going to accurately

convey the results of the election, all of that disinformation is designed to undermine the public's trust in the process. And that is really, that is really dangerous. Well, can I just tease out one of those threads that you just put out there, which is this fear that's out there now that, you know, secretaries of state might fail to certify votes. What's your take on that set of concerns?

Yes, well, Kathleen, it's a great question. And of course, it's a vestige of January 6th, isn't it? When there was this crazy idea that somehow the vice president could fail to perform his constitutional duty.

to certify the results of the election. And that false narrative, that crazy idea has continued to persist. And we just recently saw a court, I think the courts have generally done a good job of stepping up and applying the law in a independent and impartial way. We had a judge in Georgia who made it very clear that officials have to do their duty and that this certification of election results

for most officials through this chain is an administrative function that they must do. So I do worry a bit, Kathleen, that we

have taken what were always in the past seen as nonpartisan office holders as the secretaries of state all across the country. When I was in DHS in 2016, I was so impressed with how seriously those people all across the country on both sides of the aisle took their responsibility and understood that Americans trust

in the impartiality and accuracy of the work that they did was absolutely essential to sustaining our democracy. And they took that very seriously. I am worried

that they're under increasing pressure and that there's been efforts. You see the efforts going after Brad Raffensperger again in Georgia, who was the Secretary of State, Republican, who refused to go along with efforts to mislead the American public about the outcome of that attack.

election in that process. They're under a lot of pressure. But but I think, again, Americans should should look to those state and local election officials. They will generally be very good, authoritative sources of information. And I think we can count on them to do their job. Yeah. Kathleen brings up a really good point here. You know,

We've got election workers. We've got judges involved. It's not just people going to the ballots and casting their votes anymore. There's a lot more to this. And Suzanne, are you worried about our election workers and the judges who have to adjudicate these potential cases?

Yeah, we've certainly seen far too many threats against election workers and not just election officials like the secretaries of state, but poll workers and just our neighbors.

who are stepping up to do public service for all of us to help administer that election process. And it's really just so unacceptable and un-American that they are facing these threats and have to be worried and concerned all across the country.

The good news there is that DOJ and local state law enforcement officials are taking this threat very seriously, and they are bringing prosecutions. They are finding these people who are making these threats, and they are bringing prosecutions against them. And I think, you know, I hope that will serve as a significant deterrent.

This is not politics as usual. This is not just political dirty tricks, if you will. This is beyond the pale, threatening our neighbors who are doing their duty and really volunteering in many instances to help administer elections freely and fairly. So we also are seeing an uptick in threats to judges just generally.

and fairly dramatically uptick in threats to judges. And we saw, we can see where that can ultimately lead, right? We saw the arrest of an armed man on his way to Judge Kavanaugh's home.

We saw the tragic incidents of Judge Salas, a judge in New Jersey whose son was killed and husband was shot by somebody who arrived at her home hoping to kill her. So generally, the uptick in threats to judges, and I do worry, our courts are going to be pulled into, already are, we see this, being pulled into, asked to adjudicate election-related cases.

And with an election as close as what we fully expect this election, this presidential election to be, it's hard to imagine that courts aren't going to be in positions potentially of making decisions that will have an impact on the outcome of the election and going all the way up to the Supreme Court.

So I am concerned, I'm concerned about the decline that we see in all surveys after survey about trust in our courts and our justice system. Just like there is with institutions across the board in our democracy, there is a significant decline in trust in the courts. And then you add on to that, they're being pulled into these inevitably political and partisan fights.

where the losers are almost certainly going to assume that the judge was trying to favor the other side. And I worry that it further undermines trust in our courts, which is very debilitating to our democracy. And I did a report on how our adversaries, particularly Russia, are leaning into that and trying to exacerbate that distrust in our courts.

But I also worry that it hampers the court's ability to do what we need them to do, which is to help with the peaceful transition of power. We need, as Americans, to observe that social contract that we have in which we say we will view final court decisions as determinative, whether we agree with them, whether we like the decision or not, because otherwise our democracy cannot be sustained. Well, and also there's the...

broader implications for the health of our people associated with the court systems and the overall government workforce, right? If our people are being targeted, who really wants to serve, right? So the downstream effects of these kinds of

Terrible behaviors are almost hard to process, hard to calculate because it can dissuade people from entering public service. It can dissuade people from stepping up when we need great people.

Kathleen, you're exactly right. We've seen it already with, again, election workers over the last several years who have left, who have said, I can't do this anymore. It's to, you know, the threats of violence. I have to think about my family, right? And we need...

people to be part of this process across the country. And yes, even elected officials who we've heard their stories, whether anonymously or with names attached, in which they have talked about their fears again for their families, for their children, right? Not just for themselves. In an environment in which threats of violence seem to become, be more and more frequent.

and almost normalized. And we cannot allow that to happen. We've got to stand up. And again, I applaud the Department of Justice and FBI and folks at the state and local level for taking this threat so seriously and working so hard to identify and prosecute those who would chill

officials from doing their duty, those whose efforts have chilled and may chill, as you say, Americans from stepping up to the call of public service.

Suzanne, do you believe that our election infrastructure is intact, that despite some of the misinformation going around there, we have the best technology? You also mentioned before, these ballots are backed up by paper in most cases. What do you say to Americans who are actually worried about something going wrong with our system?

Yeah, we really do. We are kind of the envy, frankly, of the world with respect to how careful and secure and resilient our voting system is. Again, not just with respect to technology, but with respect to all of the procedures and processes that we've put in place, right, to secure those voting machines. They are not connected. You know, as you go to vote, there is no connection between that voting machine and the internet.

Right. And that we do have these paper ballots, that there are, again, teams from both parties, from both candidates that are there to to make sure that the process is safe, secure and the integrity of that process.

all the way down the line. So much redundancy that is built in here. And that is what the Secretary of State offices and their state and local election officials, that's what they do 24/7, all year long. They didn't just start this process in the last few months. They are building and improving their processes every single day.

And we owe them such a huge debt of gratitude for the tremendous work that they do to make sure that our, and again, these are our neighbors. These are the people in our communities that are making sure this process is secure and it is fair and it is accurate. I was in London last week and I asked a number of different friends, you know, what they thought of Brexit,

and Russian interference within that. And, you know, we had these really interesting conversations about how decisive Russia's malign influence was at that time. And the consensus was hard to tell because were opinions already set against the European Union before? Was Russia putting its thumb on a scale that was already down? Or was, you know...

Or was there something bigger? And so this is the context for this question that I have, which is, which foreign adversaries do you think we should be concerned about when we think about this election disinformation, misinformation space? And to what extent do you think the American public is resilient to some of that disinformation? Well,

Listen, I am most concerned still about Russia. They are the most active. And we've seen recent DOJ indictments and affidavit that contained a lot of evidence of Russia's ongoing efforts to undermine public trust in this process, to exacerbate divisions in our country and to weaken us. Right. And that continues every day.

There's a lot of disagreement, as you note, about the actual impact of these information operations. And I would say a couple things about that. Think about the billions of dollars that are spent on advertising by political campaigns. Yeah. Do you think they do that because it doesn't really have an impact? Right.

It's a great point. I mean, this stuff has an impact. Now, could Russian disinformation take a Trump supporter and turn them into somebody who's going to go vote for Harris? Maybe not.

Could they take somebody who's leaning toward Harris and convince them that really their vote isn't going to make any difference and there's really no significant difference between these candidates and on the issues they care about, they ought to just stay home. That's a much easier door against which you're pushing. And could Russian propaganda and disinformation

A reduced voter turnout, that I would worry about, right? And let's not forget, it's easy to stay home. Everybody can stay home. It takes an actual bit of effort to either fill out a mail-in ballot and mail it or go to the polls. And again, you're familiar, Kathleen, with the military doctrine that we all sort of point to that Jeremiah wrote that talks about tapping into the protest potential of the population.

I think Russia has been working for decades to exacerbate divisions in our country and to exacerbate this othering that we talk about, right? And convince people that democracy is not just flawed and needing reform, but that it is irrevocably broken and the individual is powerless to bring about change.

And that way, then you have nothing left to do but just drop out or turn to violence. And that's your question about resilience of the American public to that kind of messaging is exactly what we've been working on at the Defending Democratic Institutions Project, which is to educate people about democracy and about their role and about the ways in which they can make a difference and be more effective agents of change.

Now, we live in polarized times with a polarized media, polarized electorate. How do election challenges figure into all that? Are you concerned that we're going to be dealing with this election for quite some time after Election Day?

I am. You know, I think, you know, we've been saying this for the last several election cycles because we realized that this was something the American public may or may not fully understand, and that is that

The results of the election may take some time to come in, particularly in such a close election as this. It may be that these absentee ballots, that mail-in votes, that those things are going to have the potential to make a difference, and those take some time to come in.

There will be glitches on election day, despite all of the great efforts by our state and local election officials. You know, there's always something that can come up. And there are almost 9000, I think, polling places across the country. One of them may have a power failure. Something may come up and that needs to be anticipated and expected.

So there's just the normal kinds of things that in this environment will be exploited by those who want to convince Americans that there's some grand conspiracy going on. And then there are the legal challenges that we've talked about. And I think there will be. I think, you know, both sides are preparing to both bring and defend against challenges that may be brought in the courts. And while courts are

have mechanisms for moving quickly with respect to preliminary injunction, for example, that could stop something. Generally, this is not a really fast process to adjudicate all of these claims that are going to go through the courts. And we saw that leading up to January 6th, where that process took some time to play out. But already on that date, we had over 60 court cases rejecting claims

of wide scale fraud. The worry, of course, is that the people who attacked the Capitol that day accorded no legitimacy to those court cases. Well, and you've raised such a critical point here. We don't get answers about elections quickly anymore. I mean, I'm recalling Bush versus Gore.

Right. And how that was contested, hanging chads, all of the things, these kinds of election challenges and like going through and methodically recounting. It's almost the norm now. And yet there seems to be a public expectation that we'll get a result overnight because, you know, we can also get like, I don't know, diapers delivered overnight by Amazon. Right. Like it's just like this expectation for speed. Right.

Because of our incredible telecommunications and other infrastructure that exists that just doesn't match with history or reality. Yeah. Well, and we have had elections in the past, right? Where we've known on election night what the outcome was or was very likely to be.

I think part of what is going to exacerbate the problem here, Kathleen, that you've described, of course, is how close this election is likely to be. Right. And it is really the fact that it's going to come down to, you know, such a small number of votes in key states that may challenge voters.

the timeliness of being able to sort of call the election where these contests over whether certain ballots are legitimate or not, for example, will may be determinative. And that is going to add to the time that it takes. But yes, you're right. We've gotten used to instant gratification. We want to know right away. Right. Like after years of these campaigns, like make it stop. Yeah.

Americans are not good at waiting for the results that we want and demand. And I guess we're all going to have to batten down the hatches on this one. Yeah.

I think that's right, Andrew. You know, Americans need to, we need to continue to spread the word that the process is very safe, secure, that integrity is built in in lots of ways, and not to jump to conclusions and be skeptical about allegations of wide scale fraud in the election and be patient. Give the process time to work.

Okay, so on election night, I can call you and Kathleen when I'm freaking out, and you'll tell me to be patient. Yes, Andrew. I think we're all going to, we just need to have this direct line to you, Suzanne. Yes.

Yeah, Suzanne, you've now been appointed for all Americans, the person that will calm all of us down. Yes. I will do my very best, Andrew. And I will be guided, of course, by those state and local election officials and, you know, wonderful public servants like Jen Easterly at CISA and others who I'm sure will be taking to the polls.

airwaves and to social media and in every way that they can, reassuring Americans that the process has gone as expected. And I'm sure that will be the case.

Well, Suzanne, thank you so much for laying out these issues for us, helping us better understand it. Kathleen and I will love to have you back after the election. Hopefully we'll have a clean bill of health for our election system and everything will go as planned, which is to go well and to have a fair election. So thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Andrew. Thank you, Kathleen. Great to talk with you both.

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