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Election Security: DHS Plans Are Urgently Needed to Address Identified Challenges Before the 2020 Elections

GAO-20-267 Published: Feb 06, 2020. Publicly Released: Feb 06, 2020.
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Fast Facts

The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has helped state and local election officials secure online voter registration systems, voting machines, and other election infrastructure since 2017. Elections officials we interviewed in 7 of 8 states said they were very satisfied with CISA’s support.

Election primaries begin in February. However, CISA has not yet completed its strategic and operations plans to help state and local officials safeguard the 2020 elections or documented how it will address prior challenges. We made 3 recommendations, including that DHS urgently finalize its plans.

A woman voting at a polling location

A woman voting at a polling location

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Highlights

What GAO Found

Since the 2017 designation of election infrastructure as critical infrastructure, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), through its Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), has assisted state and local election officials in securing election infrastructure through regional support and assistance, education, and information sharing. Such efforts help state and local election officials protect various election assets from threats (see figure).

Figure: Examples of Election Assets Subject to Physical or Cyber Threats

Figure: Examples of Election Assets Subject to Physical or Cyber Threats

In August 2019, the CISA Director identified election security as one of the agency's top five operational priorities. CISA security advisors, who are located throughout the country, consult with state and local election officials and identify voluntary, no cost services that CISA can provide. According to CISA, as of November 2019, 24 cybersecurity advisors and 100 protective security advisors perform and coordinate cyber and physical security assessments for the 16 critical infrastructure sectors, including the Election Infrastructure Subsector. Technical teams at CISA headquarters generally provide the services, once requested.

To further assist state and local election officials, CISA conducted two exercises simulating real-world events and risks facing election infrastructure in August 2018 and June 2019. According to CISA, the 2019 exercise included 47 states and the District of Columbia. In addition, CISA has funded the Election Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EI-ISAC). According to CISA officials, the EI-ISAC is the primary mechanism for exchanging information about threats and vulnerabilities throughout the election community. The EI-ISAC director reported that, as of November 2019, its members included 50 states, the District of Columbia, and 2,267 local election jurisdictions, an increase from 1,384 local jurisdictions that were members in 2018. As a result of its efforts, CISA has provided a variety of services to states and local election jurisdictions in the past 2 years (see table).

Table: Number of Selected Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Services Provided to States and Local Election Jurisdictions in 2018 and 2019, as of November 6, 2019

Service

States

Local election jurisdictions

Continuous scanning of internet-accessible systems for known vulnerabilities

40

161

Assessments of potential network security vulnerabilities

26

20

Remote testing of externally accessible systems for potential vulnerabilities

4

44

Assessments of states' and local jurisdictions' susceptibility to malicious emails

10

5

Educational posters on cybersecurity

19

1,202

Source: Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. | GAO-20-267

State election officials with whom GAO spoke were generally satisfied with CISA's support to secure their election infrastructure. Specifically, officials from seven of the eight states GAO contacted said that they were very satisfied with CISA's election-related work. Also, officials from each of the eight states spoke positively about the information that they received from the EI-ISAC. Further, officials from five states told GAO that their relationship with CISA had improved markedly since 2017 and spoke highly of CISA's expertise and availability.

To guide its support to states and local election jurisdictions for the 2020 elections, CISA reported that it is developing strategic and operations plans. CISA intended to finalize them by January 2020, but has faced challenges in its planning efforts due to a reorganization within CISA, among other things. In the absence of completed plans, CISA is not well-positioned to execute a nationwide strategy for securing election infrastructure prior to the start of the 2020 election cycle. Further, CISA's operations plan may not fully address all aspects outlined in its strategic plan, when finalized. Specifically, according to CISA officials, the operations plan is expected to identify organizational functions, processes, and resources for certain elements of two of the four strategic plan's lines of effort—protecting election infrastructure, and sharing intelligence and identifying threats. CISA officials stated that CISA was unlikely to develop additional operations plans for the other two lines of effort—providing security assistance to political campaigns, and raising public awareness on foreign influence threats and building resilience.

Moreover, CISA has not developed plans for how it will address challenges, such as concerns about incident response, identified in two reviews—one conducted by CISA and the other done by an external entity under contract—of the agency's 2018 election security assistance. Challenges that the reviews identified include:

inadequate tailoring of services, which could have made it more difficult for CISA to meet the resource and time constraints of customers such as local election jurisdictions;

not always providing actionable recommendations in DHS classified threat briefings or making unclassified versions of the briefings available, which may have hindered election officials' ability to effectively communicate with information technology and other personnel in their agencies who did not have clearances;

the inability of CISA personnel supporting election security operations to access social media websites from situational awareness rooms, which hindered their collection and analysis of threat information;

few capabilities that CISA field staff could quickly provide on Election Day, which could limit the agency's timeliness in responding to an incident; and

a lack of clarity regarding CISA's incident response capabilities in the event of a compromise that exhausts state and local resources, which may limit knowledge about agency capabilities that are available.

Although CISA officials said that the challenges identified in the reviews have informed their strategic and operational planning, without finalized plans it is unknown whether CISA will address these challenges.

Why GAO Did This Study

In January 2017, the Secretary of Homeland Security designated election infrastructure as a critical infrastructure subsector. The designation allowed DHS to prioritize assistance to state and local election officials to protect key election assets, including voter registration databases and voting equipment.

The Conference Report (H. Rep. No. 116-9) accompanying the 2019 Consolidated Appropriations Act included a provision for GAO to examine how DHS is implementing key responsibilities to help protect the election infrastructure and the reported benefits and challenges of such efforts.

This report addresses (1) DHS's election security efforts and selected election officials' perspectives on them, and (2) DHS's planning for the 2020 elections. GAO reviewed DHS's strategies, plans, and services provided to election officials. GAO also interviewed DHS officials, representatives of the EI-ISAC, a DHS-funded center responsible for sharing threat information nationwide, and election officials from eight states and three local jurisdictions.

GAO selected the states and local jurisdictions to provide geographic diversity and variation in election administration, among other factors. The results from these states and localities are not generalizable, but provide insight into election officials' perspectives on DHS's efforts.

Recommendations

GAO is making three recommendations to the CISA Director to (1) urgently finalize the strategic plan and the supporting operations plan for securing election infrastructure for the upcoming elections, (2) ensure that the operations plan fully addresses all lines of effort in the strategic plan for securing election infrastructure for the upcoming elections, and (3) document how the agency intends to address challenges identified in its prior election assistance efforts and incorporate appropriate remedial actions into the agency's 2020 planning. DHS concurred with all three recommendations and provided estimated dates for implementing each of them.

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency The CISA Director should urgently finalize the strategic plan and the supporting operations plan for securing election infrastructure for the upcoming elections. (Recommendation 1)
Closed – Implemented
CISA finalized its strategic plan in February 2020 and a supplemental operations plan in March 2020 to support its efforts to assist state and local jurisdictions in securing their election infrastructure for the 2020 elections. Specifically, the strategic plan focused on four areas, also referred to as lines of effort, for achieving CISA's election security mission. The lines of effort included (1) protecting election infrastructure, (2) supporting political infrastructure, (3) raising public awareness on foreign influence threats, and (4) facilitating warning and response. Additionally, CISA's operations plan established activities and tasks for the operational and coordination efforts that the agency intends to carry out prior to, during, and after the 2020 elections. By finalizing these plans, CISA is in a better position to execute a nationwide strategy that supports its election assistance efforts.
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency The CISA Director should ensure that the operations plan fully addresses all lines of effort in the strategic plan for securing election infrastructure for the upcoming elections. (Recommendation 2)
Closed – Implemented
CISA finalized its operations plan in March 2020 to support the lines of effort identified in its strategic plan for securing the 2020 elections. Specifically, CISA's operations plan generally or partially addressed all 13 objectives associated with the four lines of effort from the strategic plan. For example, the plan generally addressed CISA's fourth line of effort for facilitating warning and response by establishing activities for the eight operational and coordination efforts that the agency intended to carry out prior to, during, and after the 2020 elections. By aligning these plans, CISA is in a better position to execute a nationwide strategy to support its election assistance efforts.
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency The CISA Director should document how the agency intends to address challenges identified in its prior election assistance efforts and incorporate appropriate remedial actions into the agency's 2020 planning. (Recommendation 3)
Closed – Implemented
The agency agreed with the recommendation and has taken steps to implement it. In February 2020, we reported that CISA's strategic plan had only addressed three challenges from its external lessons learned review. Following the issuance our report, CISA took a number of steps to address most of the challenges from the external lessons learned review. Among other things, the agency has formalized the roles and responsibilities of an office responsible for election security activities, established metrics to evaluate the impact of certain technical services on election infrastructure cyber risks, and further clarified the roles and functions of CISA's regional field staff in its election security operations plan. By taking these steps, the agency has better positioned itself to assist state and local jurisdictions in securing elections-related infrastructure.

Full Report

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Topics

ElectionsCybersecurityInformation technologyCritical infrastructureVoting systemsHomeland securityStrategic planCritical infrastructure protectionCritical infrastructure vulnerabilitiesPublic officials