Pell Center to hold online panel discussion on election security

The Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy and The League of Women Voters of Newport County is co-sponsoring a panel discussion on election security entitled “2020 Election Security: Threats, Strategies, & Solutions.” The lecture will be held on Wednesday, Oct. 28, at 7 p.m. on the Pell Center’s Facebook page. To register, go to the lecture’s Eventbrite page.

Election security is top of mind as the country delves into the 2020 election cycle. From fighting fake news, to preventing potential technical failures, to cyberattacks on voter registration databases and voting equipment — the list of issues can seem overwhelming.

This webinar will explore some of the key issues surrounding election security and discuss some actionable strategies and solutions to securing the integrity and availability of our elections. It will also highlight specific measures adopted by many state and local election jurisdictions to keep elections secure and accurate and to ensure public confidence in the work of their local governments.

Panelists for “2020 Election Security: Threats, Strategies, & Solutions” include the following:

Dr. David Mussingtonis the director of the Center for Public Policy and Private Enterprise at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy. He is also a non-resident senior fellow of the Center for International Governance Innovation in Canada and a visiting professor and research fellow at Le CNAM, Paris, where he leads bilateral collaborative projects on critical infrastructure cybersecurity and technology policy.

Dr. Mussington has over two decades of experience leading innovative projects on critical infrastructure cybersecurity, election security, military cyber doctrine and strategic security for NATO, the US Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, the White House, the US Intelligence Community, the private sector and international government agencies.

Derek Tisler is a fellow and counsel with the Brennan Center for Justice’s Democracy Program. His academic and research work focuses on election security and administration, and the threat of foreign interference in elections. Tisler is a co-author on several recent reports at the Brennan Center, including “Ensuring Safe Elections”  and “Preparing for Cyberattacks and Technical Problems During the Pandemic,” both published in 2020.

David Levine is the elections integrity fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy. Levine previously served in a range of positions administering and observing elections and advocating for election reform at the federal, state county and local levels.

Levine has also actively supported elections operations, data management, voter registration and outreach in several states, and he advised local officials on legislation, statutes and regulations impacting election programs. In addition, Levine has worked with advocacy groups to improve the election process and observed elections overseas in several countries for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

Moderator for the panel will be Francesca Spidalieri, the senior fellow for cyber leadership at the Pell Center at Salve Regina, where she leads the Cyber Leadership research project and the Rhode Island Corporate Cybersecurity Initiative (RICCI). Spidalieri is also a cybersecurity consultant for Hathaway Global Strategies, LLC, and the co-principal investigator for the Cyber Readiness Index 2.0 project at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies.

To register for “2020 Election Security: Threats, Strategies, & Solutions,” go to the lecture’s Eventbrite page.

Featured image by Getty Images/Joaquin Corbalan