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1 1 (July 8, 2022)

handle is hein.crs/goveijr0001 and id is 1 raw text is: ~' Congressional Research Service Informing the Iegitive debate since 1914 Updated July 8, 2022 Election Security: Federal Funding for Securing Election Systems State and local systems were targeted as part of efforts to interfere with the 2016 elections, according to the U.S. intelligence community. Reports of those activities highlighted the potential for threats to the technologies, facilities, and processes used to administer elections. Congress has responded to such threats, in part, by providing and proposing funding to help secure elections. This In Focus offers an overview of federal funding for securing election systems. It starts with some background on potential threats to state and local election systems and then summarizes the funding Congress has provided and proposed to help secure those systems. Background Elections-related systems in all 50 states were likely targeted in the 2016 election cycle, according to a July 2019 report from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Some attempts to access state and local systems succeeded. Foreign actors reportedly extracted data from the statewide voter registration database in one state, for example, and breached county systems in another. Multiple techniques were used to target state and local election systems in the 2016 cycle. Attackers tried to access voter registration databases by entering malicious code in the data fields of state or local websites, for example, and to gain access to county systems by sending election officials emails with malware attached. Election systems may also be vulnerable to other types of attack. Hacked election office websites or social media accounts might be used to disseminate disinformation, for example. Malware might be spread among non-internet- connected voting machines, computer scientist J. Alex Halderman has testified, in the course of programming the machines with ballot designs. Individuals with access to election storage facilities might tamper with ballot boxes. Some threats to election systems may also be compounded by the structure of U.S. election administration. States, territories, and localities-which have primary responsibility for conducting elections in the United States-use different election equipment and processes and have varying levels of access to security resources and expertise. This decentralization may help guard against large-scale, coordinated attacks, but it also offers potential attackers multiple possible points of entry, some of which may be less well defended than others. Limited attacks on less well defended jurisdictions might undermine voters' confidence in the legitimacy of the election process or the winners it produces. In some cases, some have suggested, such small-scale attacks might also be capable of changing election outcomes. Appropriated Funding States, territories, and localities have primary responsibility for ensuring that election systems are secure, but federal agencies also play a role in helping identify and address election system threats and vulnerabilities. Since the 2016 elections, Congress has provided election system security funding both to states, territories, and the District of Columbia (DC) and to federal agencies. Funding for States, Territories, and DC The consolidated appropriations acts for FY2018 (P.L. 115- 141), FY2020 (P.L. 116-93), and FY2022 (P.L. 117-103) included $380 million, $425 million, and $75 million, respectively, for payments to states, territories, and DC under the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA; 52 U.S.C. §§20901-21145). All three sets of payments were available to the 50 states, DC, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the FY2020 and FY2022 funds were also available to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). Funds for the payments were appropriated under provisions of HAVA that authorize funding for certain general improvements to election administration, which may include security improvements. Explanatory statements accompanying the FY2018 and FY2020 bills also explicitly listed the following as acceptable uses of the funds: replacing paperless voting equipment, implementing postelection audits, addressing cyber vulnerabilities in election systems, providing election officials with cybersecurity training, instituting election system cybersecurity best practices, and making other improvements to the security of federal elections. Each eligible recipient was guaranteed a minimum payment under each appropriations bill, with some recipients eligible for additional funds based on voting-age population (see Table 1 for the total amount available to each eligible recipient under all three bills). The 50 states, DC, and Puerto Rico are required to provide a 5% match for the FY2018 funding and a 20% match for the FY2020 and FY2022 funds. All funding recipients are expected to submit plans for use of the payments to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) and report on how they spend their funds. According to the EAC, which is charged with administering the payments, eligible recipients had received all but $7,665 of the available FY2018 and FY2020 funding as of March

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