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This month, the EAC is highlighting:
- National Poll Woker Recruitment Day is August 1 – toolkit now available!
- New Election Security Resources from the EAC and Federal Partners
- 2024 U.S. Federal Elections: The Insider Threat
- Enhancing Election Security Through Public Communications
- Learn more about the EAC’s Voluntary E-Poll Book Certification Program
- Election security communications support
- Election Threat Briefing Recap from June 20
- Request for Public Comment on Accessible Digital Form Filler Tool for the National Mail Voter Registration Form
- The anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act is July 26.
- Look for a special accessibility edition of the EAC’s newsletter later this month.
National Poll Woker Recruitment Day is August 1!
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The EAC’s fourth annual National Poll Worker Recruitment Day will be held on Thursday, August 1, 2024! State and local election officials, civic organizations, and others can use this national awareness day to encourage Americans to sign up to become poll workers in their communities for upcoming elections.
To help participate in this day, the EAC has created a customizable social media toolkit for election officials. The toolkit is easily editable to meet the needs of your jurisdiction or organization. The sample posts are sized for X, Facebook, and Instagram, but can be used for printed materials, websites, and more. With the increasing popularity of videos on social media, you can now even make a short video using this toolkit. Also new this year is a template for outreach to community partners who can help increase the reach of recruitment efforts.
The EAC also offers a Poll Worker Recruitment Lookup Tool to help people interested in signing up to be poll workers find information for their local election offices.
If you are an election official, please make sure to review your election office’s poll worker information in the tool. Please send any updates to [email protected].
Use the hashtag #helpamericavote and join in the effort on August 1!
2024 U.S. Federal Elections: The Insider Threat
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It is important for election officials at all levels to understand they are risk of being targeted by foreign and domestic threat actors, and are aware of the steps they can take to identify and mitigate these threats. This document, created jointly with CISA, DHS, FBI, and the EAC, outlines recent examples of election security-related insider threats, discusses potential scenarios that could arise during the 2024 election cycle, and provides recommendations for how to mitigate the risk posed by insider threats.
Enhancing Election Security Through Public Communications
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What is the link between election security and communications? Election officials can mitigate risk to election infrastructure and operations by developing a public communications plan that conveys accurate information about how they administer and secure elections. The EAC and CISA jointly released this guide to help election officials apply communication best practices using customizable planning worksheets on topics such as messaging, audience, and format.
Learn more about the EAC’s Voluntary E-Poll Book Certification Program
The EAC launched the Voluntary E-Poll Book Certification Program in May 2024, which evaluates and tests the security, accessibility, and usability of these systems across the country. The EAC emphasized “the current e-poll books in use in over 2,200 jurisdictions are secure and ready for the 2024 elections” in the release announcing the launch.
Commercial and in-house manufacturers interested in having their e-poll books evaluated and tested by the EAC’s Voting System Test Laboratories (VSTLs) for certification can register now.
- Commercial manufacturers can be defined as any organization engaged in the commercialized activities of marketing, selling, renting, and leasing e-poll books to multiple jurisdictions throughout the United States.
- In-house manufacturers are states, localities, or territories in the United States that have developed their own e-poll book with the sole intention to utilize, administer, and maintain the system within that jurisdiction.
Watch the full overview on the program’s web page. If you have additional questions about this program, please reach out to [email protected].
Election Security Communications Support
Does your election office receive questions from voters about election security? The EAC has voter-focused resources to help communicate the many election security practices in place, and ensure to voters that elections are accurate, secure, accessible, and transparent.
- The EAC and Election Security - Share how the EAC’s testing and certification process helps secure voting systems across the country.
- Voting System Security Measures – This voter facing resource describes the various practices used by election officials before, on, and after Election Day to keep voting systems secure. From ballot design to the storage and retention of equipment and records, this resource can be used to share plain language descriptions of the practices used in election offices.
More election security resources for election officials are available at eac.gov.
Election Threat Intel Briefing Recap
The latest quarterly Election Threat Intel Briefing hosted by Mandiant on behalf of the EAC was held on June 20. Over the prior quarter, Mandiant identified multiple information operations targeting the U.S., Europe, and further audiences in support of Iran, Russia, and China. Mandiant has also identified concerted pro-Russia hacktivist participation in disruptive activity surrounding the June EU elections.
This briefing, open to election officials and IT staff, included a strategic outlook and provided recommendations to reinforce election offices against cyber-enabled threats that target U.S. elections infrastructure as the general election approaches. The slides from the presentation can be viewed here (LINK).
The next quarterly briefing will be held in September, and more details will be available closer to this event. For additional information, including previous briefing slides and other election security resources like this, visit the EAC's election security preparedness page.
Request for Comment: Accessible Digital Form Filler Tool for the National Mail Voter Registration Form
The EAC, in consultation with the Technology Transformation Services Office of Solutions of the U.S. General Services Administration, is requesting public comments on the Accessible Digital Form Filler Tool for the National Mail Voter Registration Form. The intent of this tool is to improve the screen reader experience and allow for a customizable display, improving the accessibility and usability of the National Mail Voter Registration Form.
Please send comments to [email protected] or to the EAC’s office:
633 3rd Street NW
Suite 200
Washington, DC 20001.
All comments must be received by 5 p.m. ET on Monday, July 22, 2024.