Photo Courtesy of Mike Groll/Office of the Governor
According to Gov. Cuomo, the legislation “cracks down on the toxic cocktail of social media explosion, lack of protection and regulation and targeting in social media to protect the integrity of our elections once and for all.”
By Forum Staff
Governor Andrew Cuomo and U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) on Thursday called for the swift passage of complementary legislation they have proposed in the State Legislature and Congress that mandates transparency in political advertising, requires online platforms to maintain an archive of political ads, and aims to help protect elections from foreign influence.
Cuomo has proposed $5 million in the Fiscal Year 2019 Executive Budget to implement a four-pronged strategy to strengthen cyber protections for the State’s election infrastructure:
Create an Election Support Center: The ESC, according to the governor, will leverage subject matter experts at the State Office of Information Technology Services, Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, Department of Motor Vehicles, State Police, the State Intelligence Center, the Executive Chamber, and the State Board of Elections, to provide technical expertise, training, and cyber security best practices to County boards of Elections. The Election Support Center will also work collaboratively with the State Board of Elections to ensure that timely and actionable threat intelligence is communicated to local election officials.
Develop an Election Cyber Security Support Toolkit: Cuomo’s FY 2019 Executive Budget also includes $5 million to create an Election Cyber Security Support Toolkit. He has indicated that such a resource will be available to State and County boards of Elections. The toolkit, Cuomo said, will ensure that New York’s boards of Election have access to threat-mitigation tools such as network-monitoring services, secure software and hardware products, Distributed Denial of Service defenses for election websites, and change-detection software to monitor all changes to voter databases ensuring inconsistencies and discrepancies are identified, investigated and corrected in a timely manner.
Provide Cyber Risk Vulnerability Assessments for the State and County Boards of Elections: According to the administration, the State Office of Information Technology Services will provide vulnerability assessments to ensure election officials understand their current cyber security posture and can take the appropriate steps to remediate potential vulnerabilities. Additionally, the State will offer a free hosted Disaster Recovery service to ensure all election and voter data can be recovered and restored in the event of a cyber disruption.
Require County Boards of Election to Report Data Breaches to State Authorities: Cuomo noted that the legislation would require County boards of Elections to notify the State Board of Elections and the State Police whenever there is a data breach that could potentially expose private voter or election information. The State Board would also be required to issue an annual New York Election Security Report to the Executive and Legislature outlining the security landscape and actions being taken to protect elections infrastructure and voter information.
Increase Transparency of Online Political Advertisements: Cuomo has advanced legislation to expand New York’s definition of political communication to include paid internet and digital advertisements, require digital platforms to maintain a public file of all political advertisements purchased by a person or group for publication on the platform and require online platforms verify that foreign individuals and entities are not purchasing political advertisements in order to influence the American electorate.
“This legislation,” Cuomo said, “cracks down on the toxic cocktail of social media explosion, lack of protection and regulation and targeting in social media to protect the integrity of our elections once and for all.”
