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The Democratic National Committee says it has provided briefings to the campaigns aimed at helping them counter disinformation and earlier this year rolled out a checklist to help fight against cyberattacks.

But at this early stage, security experts believe the campaigns still need more help than is currently being provided to counter both cyberattacks aimed at accessing confidential voter information and disinformation designed to mislead the public.

\"We recognize that campaigns might not be equipped to receive a nation state attack notification,\" Ginny Badanes, director of strategic projects at Microsoft, told the House Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection & Innovation. \"While the information can be very valuable, it doesn't serve much purpose if the recipient isn't sure what to do with the information they receive.\"

When it comes to existing voter machine equipment, experts warned of a system susceptible to tampering by adversaries both foreign and domestic.

\"To be blunt, it's widely recognized and indisputable that every piece of computerized voter equipment used at polling places today can be easily compromised in ways that have the potential to disrupt election operations,\" said Matt Blaze, chairman of computer science at Georgetown University. \"Voting technology must maintain a paper record that reliably reflects the voters' choices.\"

\"PHOTO:
AFP via Getty Images, FILE
PHOTO: Residents of Mecklenburg County in Charlotte, N.C., make their way to cast their vote at precinct #15 on Nov. 6, 2018
>

Former special counsel Robert Mueller's 448-page report revealed the purported \"sweeping and systematic\" effort by the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. The U.S. government is left with a pressing challenge looking forward: how to prevent or defend against more attacks in 2020.

House Democrats have so far passed several election security related bills, but they've hit a roadblock in the Republican-controlled Senate.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell last month spoke out in opposition to the SHIELD Act (Stopping Harmful Interference in Elections for a Lasting Democracy) on the Senate floor.

\"This proposal will not do anything to stop malign foreign actors, something that every member of this body cares deeply about,\" he said. \"It's a textbook example of policy designed to reduce the amount of free speech in our country.\"

The legislation as written, however, would require campaigns to report to the government any foreign attempts to hack into their data systems to federal authorities, including the Federal Election Commission and the FBI.

\"We don't expect the local sheriff to single-handedly defend against military ground invasions and we should not expect county election IT managers to defend against cyberattacks by foreign intelligence agencies,\" Blaze said.

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