EXPLORING THE FEASIBILITY AND SECURITY OF TECHNOLOGY TO CONDUCT REMOTE VOTING IN THE HOUSE HEARING BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION JULY 17 2020 Printed for the use of the Committee on House Administration Available on the Internet http www govinfo gov committee house-administration U S GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE WASHINGTON rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 41–953 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 5011 2020 Sfmt 5011 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING ZOE LOFGREN California Chairperson JAMIE RASKIN Maryland RODNEY DAVIS Illinois SUSAN A DAVIS California Ranking Member G K BUTTERFIELD North Carolina MARK WALKER North Carolina MARCIA L FUDGE Ohio BARRY LOUDERMILK Georgia PETE AGUILAR California II VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 5904 Sfmt 5904 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 CONTENTS JULY 17 2020 Page Exploring the Feasibility and Security of Technology to Conduct Remote Voting in the House 1 OPENING STATEMENTS Chairperson Zoe Lofgren Prepared statement of Chairperson Lofgren Hon Rodney Davis Ranking Member Prepared statement of Ranking Member Davis 1 10 14 17 WITNESSES Hon Cheryl L Johnson Clerk of the U S House of Representatives Prepared statement of Hon Johnson Newt Gingrich Former Member and Speaker of the House U S House of Representatives Prepared statement of Mr Gingrich William Crowell Partner Alsop Louie Partners Prepared statement of Mr Crowell Jon Green Vice President and Chief Security Technologist Aruba Networks Prepared statement of Mr Green Dr Ronald L Rivest Institute Professor Massachusetts Institute of Technology Prepared statement of Dr Rivest Dr Aviel Rubin Professor and Technical Director Information Security Institute Johns Hopkins University Prepared statement of Dr Rubin Dr David Wagner Professor of Computer Science University of California Berkeley Prepared statement of Dr Wagner 22 24 27 29 33 35 39 41 45 47 50 52 54 56 QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD Hon Cheryl L Johnson Clerk of the U S House of Representatives answers to submitted questions Jon Green Vice President and Chief Security Technologist Aruba Networks answers to submitted questions Dr Ronald L Rivest Institute Professor Massachusetts Institute of Technology answers to submitted questions Dr Aviel Rubin Professor and Technical Director Information Security Institute Johns Hopkins University answers to submitted questions Dr David Wagner Professor of Computer Science University of California Berkeley answers to submitted questions1 75 79 82 84 86 SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING Electronic Vote Recorder Patent No 90 646 Thomas A Edison Letter Daniel Schuman Policy Director Demand Progress and Zach Graves Head of Policy Lincoln Network 1 Dr 23 28 Nov 11 2020 87 Wagner did not answer submitted questions for the record by the time of printing III VerDate Sep 11 2014 4 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 5904 Sfmt 5904 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 5904 Sfmt 5904 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 EXPLORING THE FEASIBILITY AND SECURITY OF TECHNOLOGY TO CONDUCT REMOTE VOTING IN THE HOUSE rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING FRIDAY JULY 17 2020 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION Washington DC The Committee met pursuant to call at 1 03 p m via Webex Hon Zoe Lofgren Chairperson of the Committee presiding Present Representatives Lofgren Raskin Davis of California Butterfield Fudge Aguilar Davis of Illinois Walker and Loudermilk Staff Present Jamie Fleet Staff Director Khalil Abboud Deputy Staff Director Dan Taylor General Counsel Brandon Jacobs Legislative Clerk Matthew Schlesinger Oversight Counsel Peter Whippy Communications Director David Tucker Senior Counsel Parliamentarian Jen Daulby Minority Staff Director Tim Monahan Minority Deputy Staff Director and Cole Felder Minority General Counsel The CHAIRPERSON The Committee on House Administration will come to order and I have a gavel I would now like to call the roll so that we will know that we have a quorum present First I am here I will ask Mr Davis are you present Mr Davis I see you Say ‘‘here ’’ Mr DAVIS of Illinois Yes I am present I had to get to unmute The CHAIRPERSON Okay Mr Raskin No response The CHAIRPERSON He is not present Mr Walker of North Carolina No response The CHAIRPERSON Not present Mrs Davis of California Mrs DAVIS of California Present The CHAIRPERSON Mr Loudermilk of Georgia Mr LOUDERMILK Present The CHAIRPERSON Mr Butterfield of North Carolina Mr BUTTERFIELD Present The CHAIRPERSON Ms Fudge of Ohio Ms FUDGE Present The CHAIRPERSON Mr Aguilar of California Mr AGUILAR Present 1 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 2 The CHAIRPERSON So a quorum being present I would like to thank the Members of the Committee and our witnesses—— Mr DAVIS of Illinois Madam Chair The CHAIRPERSON Yes Mr DAVIS of Illinois Just a quick point of order I do know Mark Walker is on So for the initial period of attendance he is here He is having difficulty with the video So I think the team is working on the video for him The CHAIRPERSON Very good We will note that for the record Mr DAVIS of Illinois Thank you The CHAIRPERSON We are holding this hearing in compliance with the regulations for remote committee proceedings pursuant to House Resolution 965 Section 5 of House Resolution 965 requires this Committee to ‘‘study the feasibility of using technology to conduct remote voting in the House ’’ and ‘‘to provide certification to the House upon a determination that such operable and secure technology exists to commit remote voting in the House ’’ Today’s hearing will explore the technological and security issues surrounding remote voting and will inform our study of these issues As we begin I want to remind all our members and participants of a few things that will help us navigate this platform We are holding this hearing in compliance with the regulations for remote committee proceedings pursuant to the resolution However the fundamental nature of the hearing and our rules are unchanged Generally the Committee will keep microphones muted to limit background noise When we meet in person in our Committee room members need to unmute themselves when seeking recognition or when recognized for their five minutes Witnesses will also need to unmute themselves when recognized for their five minutes or when answering a question Members and witnesses please keep your cameras on at all times If you need to step away for a moment during the proceedings please leave your cameras on and do not leave the meeting within the Webex platform And at this time I ask unanimous consent that all members have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and that any written statements be made part of the record And hearing no objection that is so ordered This is our first virtual full Committee hearing and it is fitting that I am joining you from Silicon Valley In recent months the House has made important use of new technology including virtual hearings to continue operations during the COVID pandemic These advances are particularly noteworthy because as an institution the House has not always been quick to adopt technology to its legislative procedures A young inventor once observed that what he called ‘‘the enormous waste of time in Congress ’’ spent taking roll call votes So that 21-year-old invented an electronic system that would permit instantly and accurately recording Members’ votes ‘‘thus avoiding loss of valuable time consumed in counting and registering the votes and names ’’ and saving time for more important substantive legislative business VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 3 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING But when he presented his idea to Congress he was told it would impair the ability of the minority to influence legislation So that Electrographic Vote Recorder and Register described in the first of more than 1 000 patents that Thomas Edison was issued was essentially ignored by Congress I would ask unanimous consent to enter Mr Edison’s patent No 9646 into the record And without objection so ordered The information follows VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert graphic folio 10 here 41953A 001 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 4 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert graphic folio 11 here 41953A 002 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 5 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert graphic folio 12 here 41953A 003 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 6 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 7 The CHAIRPERSON It would take another 20 years for anyone to introduce the first bill to permit a form of electronic voting By the time the House took its first electronic vote in 1973 more than a century had passed since Edison first suggested the idea It also took more than 40 years from the time Members of the House first appeared on live television to the time when cameras were allowed to broadcast live proceedings on the House floor It is not unusual for any institution steeped in history and precedent to resist change That was the case for the House when it came to advances like electronic voting and televising our proceedings both of which we take for granted today But we can’t afford that attitude today in the face of the COVID crisis That is why the House recently passed a resolution to ensure that we can continue to govern during the coronavirus pandemic The resolution authorized new ways to conduct our legislative business For example the House authorized remote committee proceedings like this one The House also authorized remote directed proxy voting on the floor And the House directed further study of a third possible tool remote voting That review is the purpose of today’s hearing In some respects these are new tools for governing but they are within our authority to implement and they are not intended to replace our regular order To the contrary they represent prudent and responsible steps to ensure that the House can continue to lead during this crisis As the resolution makes clear they are intended to be used only during extraordinary circumstances There can be no doubt that these are extraordinary times Our Nation and the world continue to grapple with the devastating spread of a historic pandemic and the spread of the disease in the United States is worsening Today more than 3 5 million Americans have been confirmed to have COVID That is a greater number than the population of 21 individual States More Americans have died in the last few months from COVID than were killed in all military conflicts U S has fought since World War II combined Plus because of the continuing problems with access to testing we don’t know for sure how many Americans have actually contracted the virus but the experts believe the actual figure could be as high as 20 million We are still learning about how highly contagious this deadly virus is and how it is spread what steps can be taken to mitigate its further spread New reports have suggested that the immunity gained by those who recover from COVID could be short lived As bad as things already are cases are continuing to rise in more than 40 States This week the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr Redfield said he believes that ‘‘The fall and winter of 2020 and 2021 are going to be probably one of the most difficult times that we have experienced in American public health ’’ This crisis demands legislative action and oversight and the continued work of the Congress and it also means that we have a responsibility to the institution and the American people to explore additional ways to be able to continue work in the face of the pandemic VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 8 Consider the alternative In a number of States outbreaks among State legislators have impacted the ability to conduct State business In Mississippi this week more than 40 legislators and staff including at least 30 members have tested positive for the disease The Speaker of the House and the Lieutenant Governor who presides over the Senate are both positive That has left the State government in limbo with significant pending business unfinished In several other States tragically legislators have died Here in Congress nearly 60 Members have publicly disclosed that they tested positive self-quarantined or had otherwise come in contact with someone who was positive At one point at the same time at least 22 Members of the House had either tested positive were presumed positive or were in self-quarantine because of someone who they had been exposed to who was positive That is in addition to the scores of other institutional leg branch staff who contracted COVID including personnel from the Capitol Police the Architect of the Capitol the GPO and others I am mindful that many people are putting themselves at risk by working on the front lines every day from doctors and nurses to police officers firefighters and paramedics to transit workers and truck drivers among others As the daughter of a truck driver and a school cafeteria cook I deeply appreciate everything people in many critical lines of work are doing to support their communities and the country even at risk to their own health However we in Congress have an option that most of these vital frontline workers do not have we can do our work remotely in a safe secure online format We have already taken a number of significant steps to do that In just two months the House has held 29 votes which included remote directed proxy votes These votes have produced legislation signed into law by the President House committees have held more than 86 committee hearings and markups These events have included more than 185 hours of testimony questions statements and debate Of those committee events 78 were hearings and of those hearings 49 were fully remote 29 were hybrid during which some Members were in Washington while others participated remotely More than 226 individuals have provided testimony as witnesses in remote or hybrid hearings In addition in April the Speaker directed the creation of an all-electronic—hopper to permit the virtual submission of all floor documents including bills resolutions cosponsors and extension of remarks via a dedicated and secure email system Since the policy took effect 1 307 measures have been filed electronically while just 51 were filed using the old process And in my capacity as chairperson of the Joint Committee on Printing I directed the GPO to accept for publication in the Congressional Record extensions of remarks submitted with the Member’s electronic signature Under this new more convenient system Members have filed 897 extensions of remarks by email All of these are remarkable changes in the history of the institution We have acted swiftly to use technology because when we maximize our remote work we minimize needless exposure of everyone who works on Capitol Hill and that includes the Capitol VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 9 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING Police the cleaning staff other institutional staff the press legislative staff and Members Virtual and hybrid committee events have been by and large very successful Although there have been some relatively small number of technical issues in considering these it is important to keep in mind that expanding use of virtual or remote congressional activity where appropriate ensures that we can continue to act in a manner that is safe for the legislative branch workforce while also preserving precious testing equipment and supplies for frontline workers who don’t have jobs that can be performed remotely The highest levels of all three branches of our Federal Government have recognized the need to adapt our work in the 21st century and that we can do so in a safe secure and transparent way In addition to the changes we have made in the House the Senate has held numerous virtual hearings The Supreme Court which long resisted modest attempts to increase transparency and public access to its proceedings has heard oral arguments by conference call These important cases involve critical congressional oversight prerogatives and for its part the executive branch has recognized the legitimacy of these proceedings by participating in virtual or remote proceedings both Chambers of Congress and the Supreme Court Now as I mentioned I represent Silicon Valley which has become synonymous around the world for technology and the spirit of innovation We in Congress must adopt the entrepreneurial spirit and openness to new technology that made my community a global leader and apply it to the procedural and logistical challenges we face in our legislative operations as well as to strategy to respond to and overcome the coronavirus Remote voting could be another powerful tool to permit the House to continue its work The Committee on Rules has already had significant discussions about the constitutional basis and foundation for using technology to bolster legislative operations during the pandemic So that is not the focus of this Committee hearing today Our purpose is to assess the specific issue of the feasibility of using technology to conduct remote voting in the House With that in mind I look forward to hearing from our esteemed panel of witnesses I would now like to recognize our Ranking Member Rodney Davis for his opening statement The statement of the Chairperson follows VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert graphic folio 19 here 41953A 004 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 10 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert graphic folio 20 here 41953A 005 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 11 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert graphic folio 21 here 41953A 006 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 12 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00017 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert graphic folio 22 here 41953A 007 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 13 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 14 Mr DAVIS of Illinois Thank you Madam Chairperson This is a great opportunity for us to—let me get my audio stuff taken care of here I apologize Chairperson thank you for holding today’s hearing I appreciate hearing from the Majority about the different provisions that the House has passed already to deal with the coronavirus We came together for four very important bills that dealt with saving our economy making sure that we allowed small businesses to survive and sustain themselves during this pandemic But the provisions that were put in place as was mentioned by the Chairperson were not done by the House as a whole they were done by the Majority Remote voting is being discussed because it is a provision that was recommended by the Majority in the House only There are many of us who have concerns with the provisions that are in place for proxy voting and for remote and hybrid hearings And I appreciate though today that we are going to discuss the feasibility of remote voting because regardless of our concerns we have to make sure that we debate the merits of any provisions even if they are pushed through by only the Majority I think this is an important conversation I hope the transparent process continues before the Majority decides to move forward with implementation I would like to welcome all of our witnesses especially former Speaker Gingrich I believe the Speaker offers a unique perspective and I do appreciate his willingness to participate I hope with the long opening statements Mr Speaker that this is not a delay game since you are across the Atlantic Ocean and on a different time schedule but stick with us I think America needs to hear what you are going to say on this issue But before we discuss the possibility of remote voting I think it is important to lay out where we are now how we got to this point and the process that has driven the operational decision making of this institution during the COVID–19 pandemic When this coronavirus began spreading across our country and the rest of the world we knew it was only a matter of time until we would be impacted in the people’s House In March there was a bipartisan effort to quickly transition thousands of staff to telework That was an enormous lift and only made possible through the tireless work of the Chief Administrative Officer which I must add didn’t exist until Speaker Gingrich was Speaker of the House and then also the Sergeant at Arms offices And I would like to thank Chairperson Lofgren for working in a very bipartisan way to make that happen Then the conversation turned to additional procedural changes that would be required for the House to continue to operate These efforts did not incorporate bipartisan input On March 23rd Democrats released a report concluding remote voting in any form would almost certainly cause unintended consequences if not done with adequate forethought and discussion and change cannot be implemented overnight and likely cannot be accomplished in time to address the current crisis Well despite this and without any public hearings or bipartisan support the majority passed H Res 965 on May 15th which au- VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00018 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 15 thorized proxy voting remote committee proceedings and authorized remote voting pending a certification from Chairperson Lofgren Since the implementation of H Res 965 572 proxy votes have been cast on the House floor dozens of virtual hearings and markups and a lawsuit filed in Federal court on the grounds that proxy voting is unconstitutional During today’s hearing we will hear lots of discussion on IT capabilities that can support remote voting the types of requirements that a system should have to safeguard against threats and examples of entities already using remote voting Four months before this hearing when it became apparent the direction of the Democratic majority and where they were heading I directed my team to formally engage with the GAO to better understand remote voting technologies This engagement has been productive and I am confident that there is a technology that exists to support remote voting I also have confidence in the Clerk and her staff’s ability to execute if directed What I am concerned about is that the House seems to be in a very reactionary posture with sweeping changes being made with little consideration around longer-term impacts We have already seen numerous hearings and markups disrupted by technical difficulties resulting in the nature of those proceedings changing fewer standalone amendments being made in order for floor consideration increased usage of en bloc amendment packages at committee hearings and on the floor and dozens of examples of Members from both parties not following the prescribed regulations with no consequences No one can say with a straight face that these trends are a good thing or that the quality of the deliberative process that is the hallmark of the House hasn’t been sacrificed Over the last six months we have seen essential workers across our Nation step up make sacrifices and take on risk all in the name of our collective well-being I know the grocery store clerks the truck drivers farmers healthcare workers like my wife and first responders in my district expect their elected leaders to have the same willingness and patriotic duty to make sacrifices just as they do every shift Americans look to their elected leaders to set an example and they don’t appreciate Congress skipping out on their duties to attend events across their States that seem more desirable than the difficult task of governing during a pandemic As our country continues to be impacted by the coronavirus the example I want to set is that we stand side by side with the essential workers of this country and I don’t believe that can be done solely behind a computer screen and over emails We have debated scenarios like this before and Members who are unable to travel can submit statements to the Congressional Record And we have a rule that this Majority adopted at the beginning of this Congress that allows for a quorum to be adjusted in an emergency I will end with a quote from the U K ’s House of Commons leader Jacob Rees-Mogg who recently announced they will be scaling VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00019 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 16 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING back their virtual Parliament He said Rather than suffering the depredations of the muted hybrid Parliament we are once again talking to each other in ways impossible when we were scattered to the four winds Rather than wading through the treacle of the hybrid proceedings we are once again fleet afoot and dancing a legislative quickstep And Madam Chair I am glad you didn’t ask me to dance here but thank you and I yield back The statement of Mr Davis of Illinois follows VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00020 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00021 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert offset folio 27 here 41953A 008 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 17 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert offset folio 28 here 41953A 009 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 18 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00023 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert offset folio 29 here 41953A 010 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 19 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 20 The CHAIRPERSON The gentleman yields back Without objection other Members of the Committee may have their opening statements included in the record I would now like to introduce each member of our panel Each of our witnesses will be recognized for five minutes and I will remind our witnesses that their entire written statements will be made part of the record Also please note that there should be a timer on your screen Please be sure that you can see the timer and are mindful of the five-minute limit I don’t have a heavy gavel but we do hope to keep within the five minutes Let me introduce our witnesses First we have Cheryl Johnson who is the 36th individual to serve as Clerk of the United States House of Representatives As Clerk Ms Johnson has a variety of legislative ceremonial administrative and preservation responsibilities These responsibilities include but are not limited to certifying passage of House bills and resolutions maintaining the electronic voting system and retaining a permanent set of the books and documents generated by the House Before being sworn in as Clerk in February of 2019 Ms Johnson worked for nearly 20 years in the House and 10 years at the Smithsonian Institution Next we have Representative Newt Gingrich Mr Gingrich served as Speaker of the House in the 104th and the 105th Congresses He was first elected to the House in 1978 and represented Georgia’s Sixth District from 1979 until 1999 Mr Gingrich has served as a member of the Defense Policy Board and was a candidate for the Republican Presidential nomination during the 2012 election He has also written 36 books He serves as a distinguished visiting scholar and professor at the National Defense University I would note that he is joining us from Rome today and welcome I know it is about 7 30 p m your time So we appreciate this And I just—as a personal note I would note that my very first day as a Member of Congress was the day that you became Speaker of the House So welcome It is good to see you again Bill Crowell is an expert in information technology security and intelligence systems He is the former Deputy Director of the National Security Agency and was appointed to this position after serving as Deputy Director of Operations After his service at the NSA Mr Crowell moved to the private sector and served as CEO of Cylink Corporation a public e-business security solution company and Chairman of BroadWare Technologies a video surveillance software company He also served as Chairman of the Director of National Intelligence Senior Advisory Group from 2007 to 2014 and currently sits on the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Advisory Board Jon Green is a vice president and the chief technologist for cybersecurity and government solutions at Aruba Networks a Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company In this role he is responsible for providing technology guidance and leadership for all security solutions including authentication and network access control encryption firewall and VPN VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 21 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING He works closely with the U S Government on secure network and remote access solutions and manages both Aruba’s Product Security Response Team and its Threat Lab an internal security research group Dr Ron Rivest is an institute professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology He is widely known as coauthor of the textbook ‘‘Introduction to Algorithms’’ and as coinventor of the RSA public-key cryptosystem He is also a cofounder of both RSA and Verisign An expert in election security and cryptography Dr Rivest is a recipient of the ACM Turing Award the BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award and a Marconi Prize He has served on the Election Assistance Commission’s Technical Guidelines Development Committee and is a member of the Caltech MIT Voting Technology Project as well as the Board of Verified Voting Dr Aviel Rubin is a professor of computer science at Johns Hopkins University where he also serves as technical director of the Information Security Institute Dr Rubin is an expert in computer security and applied cryptography and was among the first to expose the vulnerabilities of electronic voting in his book ‘‘Brave New Ballot The Battle to Safeguard Democracy in the Age of Electronic Voting ’’ Dr Rubin has briefed Congress and the Department of Defense on election tampering and other national security issues He served as director and principal investigator for the National Science Foundation’s Center for Correct Usable Reliable Auditable and Transparent Elections otherwise known as the ACCURATE Center Dr David Wagner is a professor of computer science at UC Berkeley where he has worked on electronic voting software security wireless security sensor network security and applied cryptography He is a part of Berkeley’s security research group and is also an active member of the ACCURATE Center Dr Wagner has developed quite a bit of software including tools to help with the auditing of elections In addition to his duties as a professor Dr Wagner currently sits on the editorial board for the Journal of Election Technology Systems and is part of the Science of Security Project These are distinguished witnesses and we are eager to hear from them So I will first recognize Ms Johnson for your testimony of about 5 minutes Welcome VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 22 STATEMENTS OF THE HONORABLE CHERYL L JOHNSON CLERK OF THE U S HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES NEWT GINGRICH FORMER SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE WILLIAM CROWELL PARTNER ALSOP LOUIE PARTNERS JON GREEN VICE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF SECURITY TECHNOLOGIST ARUBA NETWORKS RONALD L RIVEST INSTITUTE PROFESSOR MIT COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE LAB AVIEL RUBIN PROFESSOR AND TECHNICAL DIRECTOR THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY INFORMATION SECURITY INSTITUTE AND DAVID WAGNER PROFESSOR COMPUTER SCIENCE DIVISION UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE CHERYL L JOHNSON Ms JOHNSON Thank you Good afternoon Chairperson Lofgren Ranking Member Davis Members of the Committee thank you for inviting me to participate in this hearing on such a critical topic Since 1789 the Office of the Clerk has supported the legislative functions of the U S House of Representatives The Clerk maintains the House Journal certifies the passage of legislation verifies the accuracy of each individual vote records the vote tallies the vote and transmits the results to the public After 181 years of manual voting the House passed the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970 authorizing electronic voting And while the bill was passed in 1970 it was another 3 years before the system was developed and put into use That system the Electronic Voting System or EVS is a real-time computerized information system EVS resides on its own private air-gapped network separated from the House network which affords it a very high level of security The voting procedures are as follows Voting stations are distributed throughout the Chamber and equipped with a vote card slot voting buttons and a system readiness indicator Each Member who chooses to vote electronically does so by inserting a personalized voting card into a voting station and selecting a voting button to cast their vote Voting results are displayed on screens in the House Chamber In 2018 all of the voting stations were upgraded with the latest proximity card reader technology and new capability to assist visually impaired Members An LED display was added to provide additional vote confirmation to Members directly on the vote station We also implemented a new network architecture for greater security and flexibility for future expansions I am confident that as the House looks to our office to inform and implement the critical decisions it will make in the coming months and years to preserve and protect the legislative process we will rise to the occasion Recently pursuant to House Resolution 965 the House allowed its first proxy vote On our website we post the letters which designate who holds the proxy for the Member voting by proxy Our staff worked long and hard to ensure a successful implementation To date we have held 29 votes with proxies without incident The topic you are discussing today and moving forward is of great importance However the House decides to proceed on how it VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00026 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 23 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING conducts voting our office will be prepared to advise on the associated costs benefits and challenges and we will be prepared to implement whatever decisions are made to ensure the continuity of this irreplaceable institution If the House chooses to pursue remote voting we will need to perform an exhaustive review of the requirements available technology design options and once developed a very thorough testing to ensure its highest level of security reliability and availability It is critical that we ensure complete confidence of the Members and the public in the way House votes are recorded As with the initial development of the EVS and with each past upgrade it will be critical to take the necessary time to implement any remote voting system correctly and securely The mission of the Clerk’s Office is to support the House in carrying out its legislative responsibilities and I am committed to these duties with maximum integrity and reliability Thank you and I look forward to your questions The statement of Ms Johnson follows VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00028 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert offset folio 36 here 41953A 011 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 24 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00029 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert offset folio 37 here 41953A 012 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00030 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert offset folio 38 here 41953A 013 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 26 27 The CHAIRPERSON Thank you very much It is great to hear from you Now I would like to recognize our former Speaker Mr Gingrich we are looking forward to hearing your testimony You may need to unmute Can somebody unmute Mr Gingrich Mr GINGRICH I think I am now unmuted The CHAIRPERSON There you are We can hear you rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING STATEMENT OF NEWT GINGRICH Mr GINGRICH Okay Sorry Let me just say first of all thank you Chairperson Lofgren and I want to thank Ranking Member Davis I served for a decade on the House Administration Committee So it is kind of fun to be back and be part of this process I think learning by video is very good and very useful I think trying to govern by video is a disaster And the key factor is not going to be all the technology we hear about today The key factor is how human beings learn and the pattern of the collective dialogue which makes up a legislative body and how over time its Members become collectively smarter by interacting with each other The Founding Fathers were virtually all members of legislatures before they created the United States and they believed in the legislature In fact if you look at the Constitution the legislative branch is first and has a long section devoted to the House and Senate before they get around to the executive branch The Federalist Papers make very clear that they thought a legislative parliament meeting on a regular basis was a key to protecting freedom And the reason they thought that is that they had studied carefully the rise of Cromwell as a dictator during the English civil war and they were very frightened that an executive branch that didn’t have a vigorous legislative body would always be a danger and a threat to our freedom So their view was that you had to have people who got together regularly they had to bond together they had to be prepared to do things to learn from each other and to communicate I remember when I used to be on the House floor during the course of one or two votes you could see 8 10 12 15 different people learn about things all across the country So I want to emphasize from my part—not the technology You will hear a lot about technology today—although with all the various hacking I would be worried about it But I don’t worry about technology I worry about history and the nature of human institutions and I think they require us to physically be together regularly I would just say that I think there are three severe consequences of going to any kind of remote system The first as a former Speaker who has been accused on occasion of being very powerful I think when everybody else is out of town the Speaker and their staff become virtually a dictatorship because they have all the power they have all the ability to deal with the executive branch to deal with the Senate and I think it puts the average Member at an enormous disadvantage Second the individual Members are isolated Oh they may communicate back and forth but there is an enormous biological power VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00031 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 28 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING in people being physically together And that is why I want to emphasize if you study history going back to the Greeks the Romans coming up through the Middle Ages you will see why the rise of legislative bodies whether it was the Roman Senate or it was the British Parliament why these institutions always involve people coming into a room meeting with each other bonding sharing ideas and it is a very simple thing I think third the legislation will be less well thought through There is an enormous power to the legislative process as it improves as different Members bring in ideas as different people find things that are wrong That process really matters and the legislative product gets to be dramatically better the more there is a systemic legislative process And I think that the natural pattern of having remote voting will be to dramatically weaken that process Lastly I guess I want to challenge what I sense is an absurd level of fear Because Callista is the Ambassador of the Vatican I have been living in Rome We have lived through the pandemic Italy closed down There was a crisis comparable to New York City But I am very worried by the level of fear that I sense in the United States and this sense of danger You know we used to say—we used to sing ‘‘We are the land of the brave and the home of the free ’’ I sense we are beginning to be the land of the timid and the home of the fearful And I recently wrote Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s great admonition that we have nothing to fear but fear itself I think the idea that politicians are too precious to come together at a time—as you pointed out Chairperson Lofgren truck drivers people who run grocery stores people who work in restaurants the number of Americans every day who are going about their business—you can be prudent You can wear masks You can have social distancing But this idea that the current challenge leads us into a radical disruption of 3 000 years of legislative history I think is a very very sad commentary on the American system Politicians are not more important than truck drivers They are not more important than nurses or they are not more important than frankly people who work in a restaurant or at a Walmart or at a grocery store So I wish you would drop this sense of panic relax figure out how to get together in a healthy way and show the country by example that we can in fact function even under this challenge Thank you for giving me a couple seconds more than my time The statement of Mr Gingrich follows VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00033 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert offset folio 43 here 41953A 014 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 29 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00034 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert offset folio 44 here 41953A 015 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 30 VerDate Sep 11 2014 00 10 Nov 12 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00035 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert offset folio 45 here 41953A 016 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 31 VerDate Sep 11 2014 00 10 Nov 12 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert offset folio 46 here 41953A 017 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 32 33 The CHAIRPERSON Thank you Mr Gingrich We will now hear from Bill Crowell Mr Crowell you are recognized for your testimony You need to unmute your microphone rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING STATEMENT OF WILLIAM CROWELL Mr CROWELL Thank you very much Chairperson Lofgren It is a pleasure to be with the Committee and I appreciate the opportunity My name is Bill Crowell and I am testifying today as a private citizen and not on behalf of any entity I think that it is reasonable to parse the challenges associated with remote voting into four major categories The first videoconferencing systems with the right functionality and superiority The second voting systems with verification of the identity of the Members and of their votes and with the functionality required to carry out your legal obligations Technical issues such as connectivity operating capacity certification of the security of the system and secure end-to-end encryption and multifactor authentication and secure storage of all relevant documents and records is the third item And the last is adequate funding to acquire maintain and operate and certify the systems There are many videoconferencing systems They vary widely in their features and functions as well as the level of security Only a few have end-to-end encryption and none are certified for classified information unless operated in a secure facility Many of them were either developed outside the United States or have considerable operating support coming from outside the United States which raises extra concerns about their security and their reliability Also since COVID–19 has significantly increased the use of videoconferencing a number of these systems have been subjected to successful cyber attacks underscoring the lack of cyber resilience of this method of staying connected With regard to voting systems during the COVID–19 pandemic at least 24 State legislative bodies have embraced various approaches to both remote voting and remote hearings No common approaches or standards have been adopted although there has been wide use of a number of videoconferencing systems as a means of conducting remote hearings and the use of video streaming over the internet to provide for public participation and transparency A wide variety of techniques have been used as voting platforms It is my belief that the most attractive solution for remote voting is a purpose-built software package that incorporates all of the attributes associated with congressional process including committee management remote hearings document and bill markup archiving public access to the proceedings and recorded votes and of course an easy-to-use remote voting process There are several technical issues that also can limit or interfere with the success of our remote voting system First on that list is the fact that Members and staff do not use the same devices either in their districts or on the road In addition the internet service providers in their districts provide differing levels of performance VerDate Sep 11 2014 00 10 Nov 12 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00037 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 34 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING Security issues are the most prevalent and pervasive technical issue in this digital age Specifically multifactor authentication end-to-end encryption and verification or audit of all the votes documents and proceedings must not only be present in the solution but be accredited or certified to work as specified Today cyber attacks are an hourly and daily fact and many of them are successful against well-designed but flawed product implementation or use These attacks have been commonplace They are carried out by nation-states criminals hacktivists as well as hackers just seeking the thrill of a successful attack A remote voting system must be resilient against all of these bad actors particularly nation-states who are seeking to disrupt our democratic processes Last but not least of the four categories is providing sufficient funding to acquire and certify services In conclusion I believe there are many factors that can impede successful deployment operation of remote voting solution in the House but I also think that many of these can be mitigated I hope that my parsing of this problem is useful in your framing of an approach that maximizes the functionality needed to make this effort successful And thank you very much for the opportunity to provide a perspective on this important topic I look forward to answering your questions The statement of Mr Crowell follows VerDate Sep 11 2014 00 10 Nov 12 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00038 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 VerDate Sep 11 2014 00 10 Nov 12 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00039 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert graphic folio 50 here 41953A 018 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 35 VerDate Sep 11 2014 00 10 Nov 12 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00040 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert graphic folio 51 here 41953A 019 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 36 VerDate Sep 11 2014 00 10 Nov 12 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00041 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert graphic folio 52 here 41953A 020 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 37 VerDate Sep 11 2014 00 10 Nov 12 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00042 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert graphic folio 53 here 41953A 021 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 38 39 The CHAIRPERSON Thank you very much I will now recognize Mr Green for his testimony Mr Green you are welcome to testify rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING STATEMENT OF JON GREEN Mr GREEN Thank you Chairperson Lofgren and Ranking Member Davis and Members of the Committee thank you for inviting me to testify today as you explore the feasibility and security of remote voting for House Members While recognizing that this institution is founded on in-person engagement and voting environments the current pandemic has made it entirely reasonable to consider technology that allows for secure remote voting I have spent the past 17 years working for Aruba a part of Hewlett Packard Enterprise and for the past 10 years I have worked closely with our U S and allied partner government customers on secure network and remote access solutions I hope that experience will help provide relevant information on today’s topic Before beginning my formal testimony I want to thank Chairperson Lofgren for her representation of San Jose and Silicon Valley for the past 25 years HPE and the larger technology community in the Valley are grateful for her consistent support and leadership Let me assure you that you are not alone in trying to adapt to the new world of work-from-home orders Since this pandemic began we have received thousands of inquiries from our Enterprise customers seeking solutions to enable secure remote working It is fair so say that very few of them envisioned a world where 100 percent of their workforce would suddenly be working from home Such widespread remote working brings with it additional challenges End users without the benefit of on-site IT support personnel often become frustrated when their technology doesn’t work correctly And without protections provided by IT security solutions users often turn to that which is convenient such as personal email accounts rather than that which is secure The stakes are very high when it comes to remote voting in the House so it is critical to provide Members a solution that is both convenient and secure In the world of information security we often speak of the CIA triad Not to be confused with the intelligence agency CIA stands for confidentiality integrity and availability the three most important aspects of a secure system Many people equate security with confidentiality but in remote voting the most important principle is actually integrity the guarantee that information is trustworthy consistent accurate and originated from the correct person Second in importance is availability A Member must be able to cast a vote during the period that voting is open We have all seen the reports documenting foreign adversary interference in U S public elections and we can’t for a minute believe that adversaries would not also try to interfere in congressional voting For that reason it is imperative that the House implement the highest degree of security possible Fortunately a model already exists for highly secure remote access Congress does not have to go first Ten years ago the Na- VerDate Sep 11 2014 00 10 Nov 12 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00043 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 40 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING tional Security Agency introduced a program known as Commercial Solutions for Classified which has been widely adopted by the DOD the intelligence community law enforcement and others to connect classified systems and devices over untrusted networks using commercial off-the-shelf IT products The same architecture has been also deployed for unclassified systems when organizations have needed to adopt the best security available Congress can dispense with months of security analysis by adopting an existing proven architecture Overall I believe we need to focus on four key principles to ensure a successful remote voting program First as previously mentioned secure remote network connectivity should be provided following the NSA Commercial Solutions for Classified architecture This ensures that Members of Congress are not connecting directly to malicious or compromised networks Second dedicated voting devices should be issued to each Member to be used only for the purpose of voting These could take the form of laptops tablets or smartphones with a simple application showing buttons labeled yes no and present Third multifactor authentication would be mandatory for such a solution It is critical to ensure that the Member and only the Member is the person casting a vote Multifactor authentication is already widely used by the Federal Government and is a well-understood technology And fourth a manual system of vote verification is required The Member needs a way to verify that the correct vote was registered in real time in a system that is visible to all This could be as simple as monitoring the vote on C-SPAN My remaining caution to you is to focus on availability We can solve for integrity and confidentiality but availability is often overlooked Systems deployed today that use public internet rely on users being lost in a crowd their internet traffic appearing indistinguishable from others If an adversary were able to pinpoint the internet location of each Congressional Member then targeted denial-of-service attacks could prevent specific Members from casting their votes To counter this threat backup systems of voting must remain available and time limits on voting windows may need to be relaxed As skilled as we are today at engineering reliable networks the best backup systems are often low tech In summary I believe that should you decide to move forward remote voting is technically feasible can be enabled for a reasonable cost and can be done with an appropriately high level of security Thank you again for the opportunity to offer testimony I look forward to answering any questions you may have The statement of Mr Green follows VerDate Sep 11 2014 00 10 Nov 12 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 VerDate Sep 11 2014 00 10 Nov 12 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00045 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert graphic folio 58 here 41953A 022 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 41 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00046 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert graphic folio 59 here 41953A 023 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 42 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00047 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert graphic folio 60 here 41953A 024 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 43 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00048 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert graphic folio 61 here 41953A 025 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 44 45 The CHAIRPERSON Thank you very much for that interesting testimony Dr Rivest you are now recognized for your testimony rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING STATEMENT OF RONALD L RIVEST Mr RIVEST Thank you Chairperson Lofgren Ranking Member Davis and Members of the Committee my name is Ron Rivest I thank you for inviting me to testify regarding the feasibility of using technology for conducting remote voting in the House My bottom line is that such remote voting is feasible and can be made adequately secure I will skip a few paragraphs of my testimony since my bio has already been read I just note that I have worked for over two decades on voting system security And I speak here only about the security aspects of the remote voting not about the appropriateness of remote voting for the House That question is beyond my pay grade I see that the House under House Resolution 965 is already using proxy voting for remote voting That resolution authorizes examination of ways to vote remotely in a secure manner hence today’s hearing As noted I think the House is in a good position There are indeed suitable secure voting technologies available The most important reason why that is true is that the House votes are not secret Voting in the House is not based on secret ballots That makes all the difference as manipulation or alteration of votes can be detected and corrected For the record I note that in the U S secret ballot voting was first implemented in Massachusetts in 1888 However implementing secure secret ballot remote voting is still beyond the state of the art Back to nonsecret voting designing a secure voting system requires first of all a clear statement of the security objectives A system can’t be said to be secure if there is no specification of what security should mean for that system What are the baseline voting system security requirements Here are four Only eligible voters can vote and each at most once Votes are cast as intended Votes are collected as cast And votes are counted as collected Each property should not only be true but be verifiably true Counting as noted tabulation is not an issue since nonsecret ballots can be posted publicly and the tally then verified by anyone One recommended principle for achieving voting system security is that of software independence a notion developed by John Wack of NIST and myself This principle basically says that you never want to be in a position where you have to say well the result must be right because the computer says so In other words the election outcomes must be auditable Here is a sketch of a simple architectural approach for secure remote nonsecret voting to illustrate There is a public website where all cast votes are posted Each Congressperson composes his or her vote digitally signs it and sends the resulting digitally signed ballot for posting on the public website Many digital signature schemes are available NIST has developed digital signature stand- VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00049 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 46 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING ards Digital signatures are now implemented in every browser One approach uses the RSA public-key cryptosystem A nice thing about digital signatures is that the signature on a digitally signed document such as a ballot is verifiable by anyone I note that a digital signature is not just a cut-and-paste image of a handwritten signature it is a mathematical function of the message being signed and secret information specific to the signer Digitally signed ballots can be authenticated using public information both as to the origin who the voter is and as to the content what the ballot says Vote manipulations are not possible as forging digital signatures is not feasible The most an adversary can do is to delete or duplicate votes An adversary can conceivably delete or duplicate votes even now with proxy voting If a Congressperson can’t submit a ballot they can’t vote Detection and correction mechanisms can work for voting with digitally signed ballots much as they work for proxy voting It is important to note that voters in this case Congresspeople can check or audit their votes as correctly recorded on the public website Missing votes can be restored This should be checked This is important An approach sketched here bears many similarities to your current proxy voting procedures The public website becomes the proxy for those voting remotely Indeed such a system should provide a smooth and secure extension of your current proxy voting procedures which need not be abandoned This sketch is intended only to show that it is possible to use technology to do remote nonsecret voting in a secure manner Many other approaches are possible This concludes my testimony I would be happy to answer any questions you may have The statement of Mr Rivest follows VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00050 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00051 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert graphic folio 65 here 41953A 026 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 47 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00052 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert graphic folio 66 here 41953A 027 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 48 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00053 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert graphic folio 67 here 41953A 028 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 49 50 The CHAIRPERSON Thank you very very much I would now like to ask Dr Rubin to give us his testimony rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING STATEMENT OF AVIEL RUBIN Mr RUBIN Thank you Good afternoon Chairperson Lofgren Ranking Member Davis—or I should actually say for some of you it is good morning right—and Members of the Committee Thank you for inviting me to participate in today’s hearing My name is Avi Rubin and I am a professor of computer science at Johns Hopkins University I am also technical director of our Information Security Institute I have held these positions for the last 17 years And prior to that I was a cybersecurity researcher for 9 years at AT T Labs and Bellcore For 10 years my research focused on election security and I was director of the National Science Foundation ACCURATE Center for secure elections I was also an election judge in Maryland and I worked six elections as an election judge I have been asked to comment on the technical feasibility of building a system for House Members to vote remotely I will not be addressing the political question of whether the House should employ it just focusing on technical issues relating to feasibility and security Remote voting for House Members is very different from remote internet voting where citizens elect their political leaders which I strongly oppose for security reasons What makes internet voting difficult is the secret ballot requirement The House Members’ votes are not anonymous and that makes all of the difference I consider important features of a system for remote voting by House Members The features are that the votes are cast over the internet on a mobile device or computer or even a dedicated device The votes are displayed as they are cast on a virtual board simulating the large board in the House Chamber that shows the votes The public has access to the virtual board and can see how Members voted And the system needs to work in real time because some procedural votes lead to activity based on the results of those votes right away So a system that detects errors days later would not be that useful Without the secrecy requirement I believe that it is possible to design build and deploy a reasonably safe and secure remote voting capability for House Members that meets these requirements provided that certain procedures are followed When considering the security of a system the first step is to develop a threat model Next you want to rank the threats in order of severity and then security designers will attempt to address those threats For House Members to vote remotely here are examples of some of the threats One would be an attacker compromising a Member’s device whether it is a phone or a tablet or computer and forging votes on behalf of that Member Another threat might be that an attacker forges votes for a Member without even compromising their device Let’s look at another threat An attacker could compromise a back-end system and cause the votes to be tabulated incorrectly And finally a targeted denial-of-service attack which was already mentioned against a VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00054 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 51 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING Member’s network right when they are trying to vote that prevents them from being able to vote Well against the forged votes and the disruption of the tallies we can address those with standard security practices These can include encrypted and authenticated communication lines multifactor authentication and checks For example imagine that a staffer for a Member registers their mobile device with the system and then whenever the staffer votes—I am sorry—whenever the Member votes that staffer receives a notification on their phone saying the Member has voted and here is how they voted and that would be one check to make sure that the votes were being cast the way that the staffer knew that the Member could cast the votes There are many other such safeguards that a designer of a system could put into place Now addressing the denial-of-service attacks is more challenging but this can be addressed with backup communication capabilities including voice calls and in the worst case alarms can be raised The key is that any security issues can be detected and addressed in a system such as this So in conclusion technology is available today to make it possible for Members to vote on bills remotely over the internet However care must be taken to employ proper security design procedures and audit to ensure that tampering is not occurring and backup procedures should be considered in the event that the system is unavailable at a critical time So I am happy to answer any questions during the Q A portion of the hearing and thank you very much The statement of Mr Rubin follows VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00055 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00056 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert graphic folio 71 here 41953A 029 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 52 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00057 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert graphic folio 72 here 41953A 030 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 53 54 The CHAIRPERSON Thank you very much Our last testimony will be from Dr Wagner We are eager to hear your comments rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING STATEMENT OF DAVID WAGNER Mr WAGNER Chairperson Lofgren Ranking Member Davis and Committee Members thank you for the opportunity to participate in this hearing today I am a professor of computer science at the University of California Berkeley I have published more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers on computer security and I have worked on the security of elections for over 15 years I have one message for you today It is technologically feasible for the House to vote remotely if you decide that voting remotely is in the public interest There are risks but my assessment is that the technical risks can be mitigated If Members of the House can vote on bills over the internet a natural concern is that hackers might attack your computers and try to tamper with the votes Another concern is that technical issues might prevent Members from casting their vote or cause votes to be recorded inaccurately These are serious risks but I believe these risks can be addressed through a combination of people process and technology I would like to walk you through three possible models you could consider for remote voting One way you could vote online would be for the House to develop its own app You have heard how this could work Each Member could cast their vote from an app on their phone with a public vote board showing the votes received in real time I had suggested each Member have one of their staff crosscheck that the vote was recorded correctly Maybe party whips could help with that too And I discuss in my written statement some security measures that I think would be appropriate for this approach The primary disadvantage of developing your own app is that it might take many months or even years to develop and deploy your own solution A second option would be to buy a commercially available system for voting online A third option would be to use remote videoconferencing To record their vote a Member could make a video call to the Office of the Clerk and the Clerk’s staff could verify the Member’s face and voice and record their vote I outline in my written statement ways that you could harden this approach against hacking The primary advantage of a videoconferencing approach is that it could be deployed rapidly using existing tools Regardless of which model you adopt I would like to propose four principles that I think would support security for voting in the House First I suggest that you provide a way for Members to check that their votes were recorded correctly and you encourage everyone to do this This provides a powerful backstop in the event of technical problems If you make it easy for Members and their staff to verify that their vote was recorded correctly then any technical issues or hacking can be detected and corrected Any system can potentially VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00058 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 55 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING be hacked but well-designed ones anticipate this and provide a way to detect it and correct the problem Second I think it will be important to consider the policies and processes that govern remote voting You might consider how Members can report any discrepancies in how their vote was recorded and have them corrected You might also consider what fallback procedures would be available if the Member is unable to vote due to technical issues and the timeline for doing so Third you might consider selecting a partner with cybersecurity expertise When you buy a house you hire a professional inspector to check for any problems And the same applies here It might be helpful to have security experts on tap to help and there are a number of government organizations that might be available to help with that Fourth I suggest following good cybersecurity practices such as use of two-factor authentication end-to-end encryption and providing Members with hardened devices to vote from In summary I believe technology can enable the House to vote remotely in a reasonably safe way if you decide that it would be appropriate to do so Thank you The statement of Mr Wagner follows VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00059 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00060 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert graphic folio 76 here 41953A 031 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 56 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00061 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert graphic folio 77 here 41953A 032 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 57 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00062 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert graphic folio 78 here 41953A 033 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 58 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00063 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert graphic folio 79 here 41953A 034 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 59 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 60 The CHAIRPERSON Thank you very much Dr Wagner And thanks to all of the witnesses for their very informative testimony We now have an opportunity to ask questions of our witnesses for five minutes I would note that Mr Gingrich has previously advised us that he has a hard stop in about 25 minutes So I just wanted members to know that if they have questions for Mr Gingrich Mr GINGRICH Well actually Chairperson this is so interesting I will stay I will just blow off my—— The CHAIRPERSON Okay Good Very good Very good Mr GINGRICH Thank you The CHAIRPERSON I am going to turn to the Ranking Member first to recognize him for his five minutes of questions Mr Davis Mr DAVIS of Illinois Thank you Madam Chairperson And thank you to all the witnesses I appreciate the opportunity to talk about technology and talk about the overall process of remote voting possibly existing in the House Mr Speaker you touched on this in your testimony but can you elaborate further on how you see remote voting as possibly centralizing power in the Speaker’s Office Mr GINGRICH I will be glad to And let me say I was very impressed with the witnesses and I have no doubt that if the House decides it is wise that you can develop a very solid system And I concur with the Clerk Cheryl Johnson that she could easily I think develop and guarantee the integrity of that kind of a system So I think that is an important frame of this The challenge you have is basically how humans operate As you know you build teams by being together long enough to know each other You build teams by working out and solving problems together I think you have to look at not just the first week or the first month but if you start down a road where you are saying that being distant not interacting biologically in the same room is an acceptable pattern then I think you begin to set up a post-legislative body that is something we have never seen before Legislative bodies historically aren’t just about voting they are about building a collective understanding and a collective knowledge and at times in taking on Presidents or taking on kings they are about people who know each other well enough to have courage in situations of enormous danger So as a historian I worry about the wisdom half of this As a citizen I have no doubt if you decide it is the way to go you have brilliant people today who are testifying and collectively they could produce a—they can guarantee the technology but I am not sure they can guarantee the historical and sociological side effects Mr DAVIS of Illinois Mr Speaker I agree with you We are the United States of America If there is anything that needs to be built in this globe we can make sure that happens and the great people who are here today likely could do that But I agree with you I still believe it impacts what Congress looks like over the next generation Matter of fact I am on the Committee to Modernize Congress Select Committee to Modernize Congress Many of our rec- VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00064 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 61 ommendations have been built around how we ought to get together more talk more That is how we begin to legislate But another important process is oversight Now you changed the oversight process within the House when you got rid of proxy voting that the committee chairs had before you were Speaker Did that empower more Member input and what kind of oversight issues do you think remote voting would give to a legislative branch when dealing with the executive branch Mr GINGRICH Look I think oversight is unbelievably important I don’t think we do enough of it and I don’t think we develop enough expertise in it And again I would just say a lot of these topics whether it is healthcare or national security or you name it they require years of learning Members who spend years working on a particular area very often know more than the executive branch people that they are interrogating So I think it is very important We eliminated proxy voting because what was happening was the chairman would walk in and they would have 15 votes in their pocket Now those people didn’t sit through the hearing They didn’t ask any questions Well when the time came to vote even if you had had all your people there on some of these committees where they were stacked pretty intensely the chairman just won There was almost no reason to go So that was a big factor in why we went there I think our hope was that it would get more Member involvement more Member engagement and more Member learning And as a result all 435 players could be involved not just a handful That was our hope anyway Mr DAVIS of Illinois We appreciate you doing that I do believe it has made the House work better We do as I know the Members of this Committee have tremendous input And I also want to thank you for the transformation that you made to the House when you took over as Speaker to move the House from a patronage machine of decades before to a more professional organization with our Chief Administrative Officer and making sure that politics was put out of that process as much as possible in a political House that we work in So I appreciate your experience appreciate your comments And I will go ahead and yield back and thanks for taking the time today The CHAIRPERSON The gentleman yields back I would now turn to the other Davis on our Committee the gentlelady from California Susan Davis for five minutes Mrs DAVIS of California Thank you very much Madam Chair I appreciate all of our witnesses here today And I wanted to start with Clerk Johnson if I might And Clerk Johnson I especially wanted to thank you for everything that you and your staff have been doing to make voting and legislative processes possible during this difficult time of the pandemic And we need to remember we are in a national emergency here We are not just talking about this because we think that you know maybe some people would like to do it this way There is a reason for that and it is a matter of life and death And for some VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00065 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 62 of our families quite honestly it is a matter of life and death So being safe is very very important I wanted to just acknowledge your effort Clerk Johnson to make Congress work remotely requires remote voting of course that we have been talking about but also remote legislative processes including bill introduction and co-sponsorship And I know that you have worked hard on that creating electronic signatures I want to thank you as well for setting up the email system for bills and sponsorships and I hope we could continue to work together on that And you have also been active in setting up some of the small group voting and proxy voting that is also smart and safe for all of us I am sure you know and probably the one issue that Members would talk about that is a concern of theirs especially when they are there and voting right now again because of COVID is being able to vote quickly get on and off the floor and perhaps find ways of saving time in between And I wonder whether you think that there are some more efficient ways of doing that I want to turn to the Clerk for that The CHAIRPERSON The Clerk needs to unmute her microphone before she answers Ms JOHNSON Yes Mrs DAVIS of California Thank you Ms JOHNSON In looking at the process that is currently in place I certainly think it is very efficient with the proxy voting Members are able to come in and if they are holding proxies for other Members they announce those proxies on the floor At the same time the tally clerk holds a binder that has a copy of the proxies to make certain that it is reliable and transparent and Members are able to move on and off of the floor very very efficiently A vote normally takes about 45 minutes because they are sequential Members come in probably 15 at a time They exercise social distancing And as I said we have not had any incidents to date Mrs DAVIS of California If I may just add quickly I think the timing in between the votes and for some of us walking back and forth to offices it is great We get more steps in I guess you could say that But I also just wanted to see that if there are some ways that people have suggested shortening some of the time and maybe that is something that we could all continue to talk about But I know that that is the concern that people have expressed because it kind of forces people to hang out a little bit and that is not something that we know is necessarily in the best interest of all of us doing that and keeping people safe I wanted to turn quickly because several of our witnesses have talked about this and I think it is really an interesting concept How could remote voting be corrupted given that it is not a secret ballot And I know that Dr Rubin has talked about that Dr Rivest as well VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00066 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 63 Are we talking about corruption here Or is it that we want to be sure that Members have the ability very very quickly to be able to check and see if their votes are correct It is not a secret system So the whole world should be able to watch this with us and to be sure that we are correct And I ask others on the panel to respond to that Dr Rivest Mr CROWELL Well I would just—— Mr RIVEST I would be happy to speak to that Sure yes you are absolutely right you hit the nail on the head with the key requirement which is that the voters need to be—the Congress people who are voting need to be able to check that their ballot is correctly reported and posted There may be corruption on the way between inside the voter’s mobile device and their laptop whatever they are using There may be corruption on the routes to the posting But any of those things can be detected and corrected as long as there is a way for the voter to check that the vote was received as intended and posted correctly So I think that is exactly right there are possibilities for corruption but as long as you have a detection and correction mechanism such as you have talked about here such as we have all talked about this can work well Mrs DAVIS of California Thank you The CHAIRPERSON Mr Crowell you were going to say something Mr CROWELL Yeah I wanted to add to that list disruption which I think is a very big issue and will have to be addressed as Dr Rivest and Dr Rubin mentioned earlier Disruption is occurring all the time in the internet and we have to deal with it The CHAIRPERSON Very good Thank you so much I would now like to turn to the gentleman from North Carolina Mr Walker for his questions Mr WALKER Thank you Madam Chair Speaker Gingrich you touched on how working together and hearing different perspectives will be greatly diminished with Members not physically being in D C I know some of my personal work has been bipartisan Some of those relationships and some of the development on policies those conversations happen on the House floor I can think of two instances during a motion to recommit where colleagues of mine did change their votes going on to the floor after hearing the debate In fact there is a verse in Proverbs in the original Hebrew that states The one who states his case first seems right until the other comes along and examines him I don’t look at this as a technological debate I look at this as a procedural debate a historical debate a debate of what is best for the American people Would you mind expanding on how this remote voting will have a potential corrosive impact on the legislative process Mr GINGRICH Well thank you for that question Congressman Walker Look I approach this from two different perspectives One is somebody who did serve 20 years in the House And for example VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00067 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 64 when I was Speaker most of our major bills had huge bipartisan majorities and they did so because we listened to each other And on occasion we got into fights We had one effort to reform welfare that got vetoed We had to sit back down talk it through By the time we were done literally half the Democrats voted with us It was 101–101 in the caucus And that wouldn’t have happened if we weren’t able to listen to each other I can also tell you that I am a big fan of congressional delegation trips because you get away from your staff you get away from your constituents you get away from lobbyists You are with the other Members for 3 4 5 6 days learning together experiencing together talking together So one is my own personal experience biologically having done it The other is my experience as a historian that when you study all of these great demands that involve freedom if you look at the proceedings leading up to the English civil war where the Parliament organized itself against King Charles I if you look at the rebellion against Cromwell who had become a dictator at the end of that civil war if you look at why the Founding Fathers—remember all these Founding Fathers were professional politicians They had all served in legislatures They were colonial legislatures but they were real and they had all negotiated And so they believed that the legislative branch was so important that they made it the number one thing in the Constitution But in their experience the legislative branch for example for Washington and others meant you rode down to Williamsburg You were there for 6 or 8 weeks You stayed together you ate together you talked together Constitutional Convention 55 days without a break all of it in secret Talking together worrying negotiating thinking Finally at one point having a day of prayer because they had gotten deadlocked I think humans learn from each other and when you start trying to replace humans with a mechanical interface or an electronic interface you rapidly degrade the long-term wisdom of the collective group Mr WALKER I certainly agree All over the country right now we are trying to bring people together In a couple of weeks we will have 200 pastors coming together from all of our communities to begin conversations to talk about how we resolve issues It would be impossible to do that remotely There is also another aspect of this What kind of message does this send to the American people when Members of Congress can just stay at home and push a button or call in or video conference while our other essential workers are still showing up My wife is a trauma one nurse specialist practitioner She has to show up every day Would you address that as well Mr GINGRICH I am deeply concerned by the level of panic that the American news media has created I don’t see it here in Europe I don’t see it anywhere else around the world And I think that it is almost entirely media driven Yes this is a problem but we have dealt with a lot of other health problems before and I think that we can deal with this one VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00068 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 65 And I think as a populist as somebody whose father served 27 years in the Army came out with no money look I find the idea of the political class being too precious to take the risk of getting together I find that goes against everything in the American system And I find it deeply offensive to think that the politicians think that they are more valuable than a truck driver or a worker at In-N-Out in Los Angeles Mr WALKER Thank you Right on time five minutes Thank you Mr Speaker It is a pleasure to see you today I yield back The CHAIRPERSON At this point I would like to recognize the other gentleman from North Carolina Mr Butterfield for his questions Mr BUTTERFIELD Thank you very much Madam Chair And it is good to see all of my colleagues today I hope and pray that all of you are well Let me also thank our witnesses for your testimony I have been listening very carefully Madam Chair to the various witnesses today and I was really struck when Mr Gingrich suggested that we are acting in a sense of panic that the news media has created And I want to respectfully dispute that premise I suggest today that Democrats are engaged in what I would like to call strategic planning That is to protect this institution if rates of infection continue to increase Protecting the Members if assembling on the floor is infectious that is our goal It is not to create any panic It is simply to protect the Members if assembling on the House floor becomes infectious I will note that there was a press conference last week in front of the Capitol and one of our beloved Members from Virginia contracted the coronavirus while right here on the Capitol Grounds And so we are just trying to be proactive and to look forward and to do some strategic planning I was in a meeting the other day a virtual meeting with two of the leading epidemiologists in the world and what those two gentlemen told us was that COVID is winning—COVID is winning If States don’t require extraordinary measures the infection rates could reach as much as 50 percent by the end of the year I hope my colleagues are not surprised by that I hope you agree with that assessment But if the rates of infection continue on the same course that we are seeing now it could rise to 50 percent this year And so as my colleague Susan Davis said a moment ago this is a national emergency and it could be a matter of life and death Let me just turn my first question to the clerk And thank you Ms Johnson for your incredible work in all that you do for all of us in the House At any given time under normal circumstances Ms Johnson how many people are on the floor And that would be Members and Members’ staff and the support personnel including the Capitol Police and the sergeant at arms and the personnel from your office Collectively how many people under normal conditions are on the floor Ms JOHNSON Approximately 20 persons and that is clerk staff as well as staff of the parliamentarian and Speaker’s leadership VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00069 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 66 staff as well both Democrat and Republican But with the Clerk’s Office we have the bill clerk the reading clerk—— Mr BUTTERFIELD But put it all together including the Members including the Capitol Police in the aggregate how many people 500 perhaps Ms JOHNSON Oh if we include everyone on the floor at one time it is well over 500 It is probably more like 550 Mr BUTTERFIELD And so while I think it is wonderful to have 500 people on the floor so that we can talk with each other and plan our votes in the middle of a motion to recommit and all of that I think we have to look at extraordinary circumstances We do not need 500 people on the floor at one time We don’t need 50 people on the floor at one time And so thank you for that It occurs to me that one of the most straightforward ways to vote remotely might be to do it by video conference in which the Member would simply tell a vote clerk how they wish to vote I know our friends over in the other body they vote by a roll call but it is an in-person roll call And I am thinking perhaps about an electronic teleconference roll call Would that be practical Ms JOHNSON It would be technically feasible We would just have to make certain that it is reliable But it certainly would be practical Mr BUTTERFIELD And finally in a remote voting scenario do you think it would be beneficial to have votes to be public the moment the votes are cast And as we all know the public does not know how we vote instantaneously The Members know because we can look up at the board but the public does not know for a few minutes until your office is able to post it on the internet But do you have a system in mind whereby the public would immediately know how a Member of Congress voted on legislation Ms JOHNSON I think that involves variables I don’t have a system in mind but we could probably have such a system But no I don’t have one in mind Mr BUTTERFIELD But that would be beneficial I take it if the public could instantly know how a Member voted Ms JOHNSON Transparency is always beneficial I agree Mr BUTTERFIELD Thank you Ms Johnson Thank you Madam Chairman The CHAIRPERSON Thank you very much I would now like to turn to the gentleman from Georgia Mr Loudermilk for his questions Mr LOUDERMILK Thank you Madam Chair Appreciate it I apologize for my voice Believe it or not there are other sicknesses other than COVID out there And I came down with the good old common cold this week and I totally lost my voice yesterday The CHAIRPERSON I am sorry Mr LOUDERMILK But it is coming back It isn’t COVID because of a flight I took on Air Force One a few days ago I was tested And so I know that that kind of plays into I think what Speaker Gingrich was talking about it is almost like today if anybody gets VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00070 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 67 a cold they are all of a sudden just scared to death that they have COVID And so we have to keep things in perspective I think the question that we should be asking here today and several of our witnesses have alluded to this the question isn’t whether or not this could technically be done it is whether we should be doing this And I think one key indicator to whether we should be doing this or not is the amount of time that we have talked about security on here today That ought to be the first indicator that ought to raise a red flag I spent 30 years in the technology sector and one of the things I can tell you there is an old adage that basically said the question isn’t if you are going to be hacked but it is when And I know that we can build systems that will be secure enough to do this but also those systems are only as good as you maintain them continually And it would create an inordinate amount of work to continue to maintain these because as some of our esteemed panelists have said today they have talked about how high profile this would be what a target we would be the risk that we would have And obviously we would be one of the highest profile targets not only to cyber criminals but to foreign entities as well And the amount of effort that we would spend in just continuing to stay ahead of the bad guys I don’t know that it would be worth implementing a system like this I think we really should be talking about ways to hold ourselves accountable to do the jobs we are supposed to be doing I can’t remember I am sure Speaker Gingrich can tell us when was the last time that the House and the Senate actually passed appropriations by our own deadline I mean I think we should spend time on how we hold ourselves to do our jobs not trying to make it easier for us not to do our jobs But I think it is important to have the conversation But the most secure way to vote is to walk on the floor with your card And I give credit to the system that we have right now It does take longer It isn’t as efficient because we can’t go on the floor and vote on four votes at one time It takes half a day or a quarter of a day to vote on one bill because the machines are closed But yet we have got it down to where we can do that So anyhow I think the real question ought to be is this something we should be considering not if it could be done Speaker Gingrich good to see you again And it took me a moment when you said you are in Rome I had to figure out were you talking about Rome Georgia or Rome Italy So I think I figured that out But you did a lot to reform House processes I have read several books on it When you became Speaker it was like reforming the entire House because of the level of corruption that existed at several levels—and including at the time the House Administration Committee And one of the things that has been spoken about is that you got rid of proxy voting Why did you get rid of that in the committee level and what were the problems it created VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00071 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 68 Mr GINGRICH Well let me say first just for a second that in terms of what Clerk Johnson is dealing with we actually brought in a firm to audit the House And after about 9 months they came back and briefed us and said ‘‘It is impossible Since 1789 the House has never kept records accurate enough to be audited ’’ But they said ‘‘If you will give us a contract a year from now we will be able to audit the House ’’ And that was one of the breakthrough moments that led to a much more modern House And the corruption wasn’t particularly partisan It was just people had gotten sloppy over a very very long period I would say and I draw a distinction here as I said earlier I have no doubt with the experts you have heard from today that you can get to a safe and secure method for remote voting The proxy voting issue is a different issue and one which does concern me and that is it centralizes power and actually lowers the interest of other Members in participating because they are just going to lose the vote And the chairman of the committee or the Speaker of the House or whoever is just going to beat them with the names of people who aren’t even there have no idea how it has been voted And so for us that was a very frustrating part of being in the minority and that is why we changed it when we took over We actually took away from our brand-new chairmen the power that their predecessors had and would not let our new chairmen use the proxies to dominate their committees Mr LOUDERMILK Thank you Mr Speaker I mean there are times that it would be beneficial when I have three committee hearings going on at the same time or markups and I have to run from one to the other but that is just part of what I signed up to do So thank you I see I am out of time And I yield back The CHAIRPERSON Thank you Mr Raskin has been able to join us from the Rules Committee We thank you The gentleman from Maryland is recognized for his five minutes Mr RASKIN Madam Chair thank you very much And thanks for calling this extremely important meeting at a time when the country is in an intensifying crisis with the coronavirus We have 3 3 million cases We lead the world in case count We lead the world in death count We have tens of millions of people thrown out of work because of this nightmare And several of our States would be in the top five countries in the world in terms of increases in the coronavirus if they were treated as a country And we know that there are hospitals being maxed out and overrun in Florida in Texas in Arizona and throughout a lot of the southern part of our country I would not agree with the proposition that using remote voting or proxy voting in the context of a national public health crisis reduces deliberation I would think that people can engage in robotic cultish party-line voting even when they are standing on the floor of the House And I have seen many many people do that And I think people at the same time could call in a proxy vote or vote remotely having listened carefully to the speeches on TV and having consulted with their colleagues VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00072 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 69 So I just think that that argument has very little force to it There might be other things we can do to promote meaningful dialogue and discussion But I understand the same kinds of arguments were made when the House of Representatives first moved to use electronic voting in the first place that somehow this would sterilize the process and cut down on interpersonal communication and so on So I am more concerned about the arguments that I have heard from several people today phrased rhetorically What kind of message does it send to Americans on the front lines like nurses and doctors and first responders who go to work if there are Members of the House who can’t make it and they vote from home Does it say something as Mr Gingrich said—and I am sorry I never had the chance to serve in Congress with Congressman Gingrich because he is an interesting guy—but does it say something about the preciousness of the political class Well I don’t think so If anyone wants to really prove his manhood in this process or prove your courage or your tenacity go spend a day in a hospital with the nurses and the doctors and the frontline providers And if you can’t do that or you don’t want to do that listen to them because they are all telling us the same thing Stay home Because the hospitals are being overrun and the pandemic is out of control And we have people like the President who are not wearing masks and we have people who are undermining the public health advice of our doctors and our scientists and Dr Fauci Stay home if you can stay home because this virus is still out of control Now the House of Representatives as I think I heard the Clerk testify when we are operating and there is a vote going on can have anywhere between 400 500 550 people together on the floor My friends conferences across the country have been canceled during this period because they have 500 people coming together at hotels And that is how the virus has spread in a number of cases one infamously in Boston at a conference where it just spread like wildfire We basically think we are a regular meeting conference in that sense when you look at it from an epidemiological perspective So nobody wants to be in this position and this is not the occasion to discuss the incompetence of the national government’s response to this crisis Nobody wants to be in this situation but we do have a responsibility to maintain continuity of government and the continuity of Congress and to make sure that we are acting consistent with public health protocols in a safe and in a secure way And so I very much favor the idea of moving forward You know Madam Chair if you would permit me one more thought There were people saying well this isn’t fair to our constituents when we were talking about proxy voting Proxy voting has allowed lots of Members who were sick and we have had a number of Members both Republicans and Democrats suffer from the coronavirus We have enabled people to participate We have enabled them to participate if they have immunocompromised or vulnerable family members or other people who couldn’t go because of travel logistics and couldn’t make it VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00073 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 70 to Washington Their constituents had a voice And I know because the Republicans are suing about this A lot of Republicans didn’t participate I think in the last vote there were nine or ten Republicans who didn’t participate What does it say to their constituents that they would prefer to make some kind of vain moral gesture by not voting and not having their own constituents represented than to participate in a system which allows everyone to be heard I yield back Thank you The CHAIRPERSON The gentleman yields back I would now like to turn to the gentlelady from Ohio Ms Fudge for her five minutes of questioning Is Marcia still with us Perhaps not Then we will go to Mr Aguilar Mr AGUILAR Thank you Madam Chair And appreciate the panel and the panelists for being here Just off of what Mr Raskin mentioned too one of the other roles I play is chief deputy whip of our caucus And I have a number of conversations with colleagues about it just like you Madam Chair And no colleague is in the same position Some colleagues live with someone who has autoimmune issues Some live with in-laws or spend time with family members who have compromised systems We all have to make decisions based on our own personal health and circumstances This isn’t anything that has to do with how the press is portraying it This has to do about public health This has to do about the real risks that exist by Members getting on planes and coming from all points in the country We don’t all live in Washington D C I know maybe in another time that was more prevalent That has been weaponized by politics in the past And so many of us and I among them I have been to every vote that we have made here in the pandemic I will board a plane and come five hours each way doing that and having a commute that is over 8 hours each way And there is no problem with that that is what I signed up for as my colleague from Georgia mentioned But let’s not minimize the fact that every Member is going to make the decisions that is best for them And I would like to just bring it back briefly to the topic of the hearing isn’t about our hopes and fears isn’t about the press It is about exploring the feasibility and security of the technology that is at hand And so I would like to ask Mr Green is there a technology in existence in the commercial market space that could be useful to the House in creating a secure infrastructure to implement remote voting Mr GREEN I don’t want to self-promote too much but of course my own company produces something like that that is used widely for secure access and that is just—that is a piece of an overall solution That is not a complete solution So we focus on the network and there are other tech companies that focus on secure network connectivity as well On top of that you can layer very standard types of technologies whether that is VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00074 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 71 browser-based applications A voting application could be as simple as a web server and a browser running on a mobile device So it doesn’t have to be a complex thing given that the other protections that we have talked about and the other panelists have talked about today are in place notably some live verification that a correct vote was received That is really the key to the entire thing So I think we can solve the network problem We can solve the application problem The other processes that go around it that is the more complicated part Mr AGUILAR If you were responsible for a secure voting system what would concern you most What would keep you up at night about devising a system that can work Mr GREEN As I indicated at the end of my testimony I would be most concerned about the availability the fact that you may have Members with poor internet connections or no internet connections or unreliable internet connections You may have adversaries that specifically target those Members If they know what the vote is going to be and you can prevent those specific Members from voting you may potentially be able to throw the vote in a direction or another So again backup systems are really critical and there are different ways to engineer those that I think involve humans rather than necessarily involving technology that can end up making things safe Mr AGUILAR I appreciate it Professor Rubin different legislatures in statehouses across the country and across the world have taken different approaches on this as you highlighted Some require legislators’ emails and signed and scanned ballots Others have created apps When you think of the possibility of the House having a vote-remote system is there a particular system or framework that comes to mind that is something you would counsel us to consider Mr RUBIN I think that if we had to recommend a particular system the first step would be to gather the experts together and brainstorm that And I think Dr Wagner presented some very compelling ideas For example the recorded—pre-recorded video of the vote as well as what has been discussed such as a web server and an app I think the key underlying all of these is the ability to look in real-time and decide if there has been a problem and identify it right away And I think as to the availability question for example the first thing you could do if you are voting on a phone and there has been a denial of service attack perhaps switch from your WiFi to your cellular provider and see if that works If that doesn’t work then the next step would be to alert somebody and to have a mechanism in place in advance that would make it easy to alert someone saying ‘‘I am trying to vote and my vote has not been successful ’’ and then have a procedure for getting that vote in some other way Mr AGUILAR I appreciate it Thank you Madam Chair I yield back The CHAIRPERSON Thank you VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00075 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 72 So I would like to recognize myself for a few questions Mr Crowell Members of the House are all over the board in terms of their familiarity with technology Are there secure methods to remote voting that you think would be more user-friendly than others Mr CROWELL Well certainly And in fact I would agree with what Avi Rubin said that a purpose-made application running on a browser or running in an operating system would be the most complete approach and would make it easier for the Members to vote no matter what device they were using to vote on because these are commonly available on all of the devices Purpose-built because you want the voting to be very very easy a ‘‘yes’’ or a ‘‘yea’’ or a ‘‘nay’’ button for the vote itself clear identification of what the matter is in front of you so that there is no ambiguity about what you are voting on and the ability to record all of these things not only in real-time but for posterity since these become public records The CHAIRPERSON Right Mr CROWELL All of that has to be done securely and it can be in a purpose-built system as opposed to trying to patch together various apps that were never intended to support voting The CHAIRPERSON Mr Green I wonder if you have thoughts on how votes that were cast remotely could be integrated with the votes cast in the Chamber from a technological standpoint given that the system we have is air gapped with one-way data flow Mr GREEN Yeah I think integrating those systems would be ideal so that you don’t have a 100 percent remote or a 100 percent in-person type of voting operation Ultimately it seems like you are going to need somebody to sit there and push the right button or somehow feed those systems in probably that somebody sitting on site in the House Chamber or at least in the building there And again as long as the Member voting remotely can see that and see the result of that that can be done fairly safely The CHAIRPERSON Dr Rivest in your testimony you mentioned that the most an adversary would be able to do in a particular system would be to delete or duplicate votes Can you explain what sort of measures could be taken to protect against deletion or duplication of votes Mr RIVEST Thanks Great question I think some innovation in the procedural aspects of voting in the House might help a lot One thing that occurs to me here hearing the discussion would be to be able to file a default vote ahead of time so that you can say ‘‘Should my internet go down should I be unable to communicate this is how I would intend to vote on this bill ’’ but then after hearing the debate as Speaker Gingrich suggests you change your mind or you have other influences that cause you to rethink the vote you could file either remotely or inperson a new vote that would override the default So something like that could be one way of mitigating the risk of having unavailability which is a risk that is pretty unique to remote voting compared to in-person voting The CHAIRPERSON Right VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00076 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 73 Dr Rubin it is important that we authenticate—we have all talked about that—that the vote being cast is being cast by the Member herself Do you think we should consider if we move to this any kind of tech system a biometric authentication as part of a multifactor authentication system And if so would that be an iris scan Mr RUBIN So biometrics are very powerful and if designed correctly they can provide a useful factor I am a big fan of multifactor authentication so I think that if there were a way to integrate an iris scan such as what you get when you unlock an iPhone today— well that is face recognition it is not an iris scan—but something some biometric to that effect if you could initialize the system in advance with what a person’s face is like and then integrate that into the authentication at the time that that would be beneficial But I also think that we can achieve authentication without that So it is just one of the tools in the arsenal that we have that can help us when we design a system The CHAIRPERSON Dr Wagner would technology that uses a lot of bandwidth make denial of service attacks more likely Would it be better to utilize technology with low bandwidth and more fault tolerance Mr WAGNER Thank you I don’t think that should be your primary consideration What I would recommend is the primary way to mitigate denial of service concerns is to have a fallback method We don’t have effective technological ways to absolutely prevent denial of service attacks So the primary defense is to have some other alternate channel that can be used in the event of a problem The CHAIRPERSON Let me ask you this Should we be concerned about man-in-the-middle attacks And if so what would be the best way to secure a system against that type of attack Mr WAGNER Certainly Man-in-the-middle attacks could arise if casting votes over the internet or over a telephony system where attacks are possible And there are industry standard defenses that would be effective at preventing man-in-the-middle attacks For instance many of us have referenced end-to-end encryption which is an effective defense So I think using industry standard mechanisms would be a reasonable way to defend against those attacks The CHAIRPERSON Thank you I see my time is expired so I want to thank all of the witnesses for this enormously valuable testimony I would note that House Resolution 965 requires this committee ‘‘to study the feasibility of using technology to conduct remote voting in the House ’’ So that is what we are about We have different views on whether we should or shouldn’t But our task is to examine the technology and to be able to certify to the House if we are able to determine that an operable and secure technology exists to conduct remote voting in the House The testimony received today is enormously helpful in helping us to complete the task that has been assigned to us And I would like to note for the witnesses that the Members may have additional questions for you And if we do we would ask that you respond to VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00077 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 74 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING those questions in writing and the hearing record will be open for those responses You know this is an important question for all of us Nothing is perfect And I was listening to Members I have missed votes not because of a denial of service attack but because United Airlines took off late and I didn’t make it in time to go to the House floor I agree Mr Gingrich there is really nothing to substitute for Members going on a codel together and getting to know each other but that is not happening now because we are following the advice of the attending physician And I love being on the floor when the mix of Members everybody is running around and talking to each other and getting letters signed but that is not happening either because the attending physician is saying we have to go in groups of 20 and then leave The votes are taking a very long time because of the need for social distancing So in this pandemic our situation has changed We look forward to the time when the conflagration of this pandemic has abated I envy you there in Rome where you are not actually with the kind of wildfire that is eating through America with this—not just America but my own State of California where thousands and thousands of positives are logging in every day It is really a very serious matter Mr GINGRICH If I might Madam Chairperson I just want to say I think for the purpose you were assigned to ascertain whether or not it is technically doable this was a superb hearing It makes me proud to once again be briefly part of House Administration I think you had terrific guests and I think they all did a very fine job of outlining the technical possibilities So thank you for allowing me to be part of that The CHAIRPERSON Well thank you for that From a former Speaker that is great praise indeed and we appreciate it With that I want to thank all the Members for their participation I ask unanimous consent to put into the record a letter received from Demand Progress and keep the record open for other material that Members may wish to add to the record The information follows VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00078 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00079 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert offset folio 1 here 41953A 039 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 75 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00080 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert offset folio 2 here 41953A 040 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 76 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00081 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert offset folio 3 here 41953A 041 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 77 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00082 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert offset folio 4 here 41953A 042 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 78 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00083 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert offset folio 5 here 41953A 043 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 79 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00084 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert offset folio 6 here 41953A 044 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 80 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00085 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert offset folio 7 here 41953A 045 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 81 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00086 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert offset folio 8 here 41953A 046 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 82 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00087 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert offset folio 9 here 41953A 047 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 83 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00088 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert offset folio 10 here 41953A 048 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 84 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00089 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert offset folio 11 here 41953A 049 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 85 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00090 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert offset folio 12 here 41953A 050 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 86 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00091 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert offset folio 106 here 41953A 035 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 87 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00092 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert offset folio 107 here 41953A 036 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 88 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00093 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert offset folio 108 here 41953A 037 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 89 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00094 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953 Insert offset folio 109 here 41953A 038 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING 90 91 rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HEARING The CHAIRPERSON And with that we are ready to adjourn and I will take my gavel and virtually tap it We are adjourned Thank you very much Whereupon at 2 56 p m the committee was adjourned VerDate Sep 11 2014 23 28 Nov 11 2020 Jkt 041953 PO 00000 Frm 00095 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E HR OC A953 XXX A953