[Image via HHH]

Colorado’s Judd Choate and DHS’ Matt Masterson will present a webinar today at noon Central on “Election Security: Preparing for 2020”. Here’s the information from the webinar announcement:

Since the 2016 presidential election in which the Russians attempted to both influence the electorate and access state voter registration databases, election officials have been racing to update their systems and improve their practices. Join Judd Choate, Colorado’s director of elections and Matt Masterson, senior adviser for the Department of Homeland Security for a discussion of a handful of easy(ish) and inexpensive(ish) improvements you should consider in preparing for 2020. Introduction provided by Doug Chapin, director of elections research for the Fors Marsh Group and Certificate in Election Administration program founder. The webinar is free to attend.

BIOS:

Judd Choate is the director of elections for the Colorado Department of State. He was the president of the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED) in 2017 and is a member of the national Government Coordinating Council for election infrastructure. He has a J.D. from the University of Colorado Law School and both a Ph.D. and M.A. in political science from Purdue University. Choate is a member of the steering committee for the Certificate in Election Administration program at the University of Minnesota Humphrey School of Public Affairs and will be helping to develop a new course on election security for CEA in 2019-2020.

Matt Masterson is the senior adviser for the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity unit. Masterson works with federal, state and local officials to protect election systems against cyber threats. He is a former chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. He served as EAC commissioner for nearly four years, following his nomination by then-President Barack Obama and subsequent confirmation by the Senate in late 2014.

I’ve gotten a peek at the slides and this is going to be a great session! As noted above, the webinar starts at noon Central (1pm Eastern/11am Mountain/10am Pacific) – you can sign up using this link. Hope to see you there!

Programming note: I will be taking a short end-of-semester blogging break for some family travel. The blog will return next Wednesday, June 5.