An organization representing top state election officials is complaining it’s being kept in the dark by the federal government after a new report showed the Obama administration was quietly making extensive plans — including the possibility of deploying armed troops — in the case of an election day cyberattack or last-minute propaganda efforts from Russia.
Time Magazine reported on a document it obtained showing the administration’s plans, which noted that state and local governments would have the primary jurisdiction, but called for the deployment of armed troops to counter a “significant incident.”
The plan allowed for the deployment of “armed federal law enforcement agents” to polling places if hackers managed to halt voting. It also foresaw the deployment of “Active and Reserve” military forces and members of the National Guard “upon a request from a federal agency and the direction of the Secretary of Defense or the President.”
The National Association of Secretaries of State, a nonpartisan group that encourages cooperation and information sharing between the top voting officials of the states, said they had no idea the administration was making such plans, which shows a continued lack of communication.
“Time and time again, state election officials who hold the constitutional authority to oversee the voting process have been left wondering why our federal leaders are being so opaque about their plans to help secure elections from foreign nation-state threats,” said Kay Stimson, spokesperson for NASS.
“There won’t be unlimited chances to get this right,” Stimson added. “The feds don’t even have authority to act without the consent of state and local officials. What is the point of gathering intelligence on foreign threats, only to withhold that information from the very people who can use it to bolster the defenses around our election systems?”
NASS feels particularly irked because it’s been through the same issue this year with the Department of Homeland Security, after DHS gave the nation’s voting systems a “critical infrastructure” designation. The full import of that designation is still unknown, as DHS hasn’t delivered to state and local voting officials their parameters of what that designation would allow them to do.
NASS issued a resolution condemning the designation, which first happened in the last days of the Obama administration, but which has been continued under the Trump administration.
Secretaries of state were taken by surprise when the Intercept published a leaked document that showed federal officials were aware of numerous attempted cyberattacks prior to election day.
“When this leak happened, I know a lot of secretaries [of state] were alarmed, I was alarmed by it,” Dunlap told the Washington Examiner in June, not long after the Intercept published their leak. “But what was alarming was not the idea that you’ve suffered a cyberattack — that’s the reality in the digital world. But the thing that was alarming was they hadn’t told anybody. And really had no plans to tell anybody.”
