Top election officials from across the country are gathering in Indiana this weekend, finding themselves in the unexpected position of being at the center of a national debate about voter rolls, cybersecurity, and the role the federal government should have in interacting with election systems that are the sole purview of state and local governments.
The annual conference of the National Association of Secretaries of State had already been slated for this weekend for some time, but coincidentally takes place just days after President Trump’s “voter integrity” commission ignited a firestorm by surveying the secretaries of state across the country, asking them for voter data, which sparked privacy concerns.
Trump’s commission, originally conceived as a way to explore and determine how widespread voter fraud by noncitizens may be, has plainly inserted itself into the agenda.
Secretaries from 29 states will be in attendance, according to the incoming president of NASS Connie Lawson of Indiana. Absent from the meeting will be the Kansas secretary of state, Kris Kobach, who is tasked with running the Trump commission.
“Count me as someone who is concerned about why this information is being put together in a central place,” Lawson said at a Friday afternoon news conference. “I hope we get answers to some of this because I do think that this is an odd time to be forming a national database of some kind.”
Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams reasserted that the request for information from the commission asked only for data that would normally be releasable under that state’s law.
Still, other initiatives with parallels in terms of federal interaction haven’t drawn the same amount of public reaction.
Former NASS president Matt Dunlap of Maine made a comparison to the Real ID Act, which would have affected how each state created driver licenses.
“We [Maine] had a tremendous, overwhelming vote in support of compliance with the ‘Real ID Act’ of 2005, which actually contained much more proprietary information including images of your original birth certificate as part of the data set in the motor vehicle database,” Dunlap said. “And yet no one really batted an eye at that, because they were talking about travel, not elections.”
Also of note is that the association has been pushing back against a recent decision by the Department of Homeland Security to designate voting systems as “critical infrastructure.” Such a designation could come with some federal oversight, but the terms of what that would look like still haven’t been outlined by DHS, which makes some of the secretaries nervous.
While not a unanimous vote, NASS as a group passed a resolution opposing that action when it first took place late in the Obama administration and continues to do so as the Trump administration had voiced its intent to continue that policy.
Williams noted that even though DHS made the “critical infrastructure” designation, secretaries of state weren’t notified that federal officials were aware of some hacking attempts until that fact was known when the Intercept published a leaked, classified document.
“Many of you are aware from following news reports that Homeland Security, under the last administration and continuing through this one, chose not to notify state election officials about potential breaches at the local level,” Williams said. “That’s one of the things Colorado would be advising the commission that we think needs to change.”
Representatives from DHS as well as the FBI will be taking part in some of the NASS conversations this weekend.
As for the president’s claim that anywhere from 3 million to 5 million illegal immigrants across the country cost him the popular vote, Dunlap gave a response sure to please both Democrats and Republicans.
“I would say personally that I would be stunned to see a number anywhere near that close,” Dunlap said. “I’ve also said right along the line that sunlight is the best disinfectant. We take a look at it, we don’t find anything, that answers the question.”
“If we do uncover substantiations of perhaps thousands or hundreds of thousands, or millions, then we’ve got a real problem on our hands,” Dunlap added later. “I don’t think we’re going to find that.”
