On Thursday, September 15th from 12:30 pm MDT – 2:30 pm MDT / 1:30 pm CDT – 3:30 pm CDT, the USC Election Cybersecurity Initiative will host a free online regional workshop for Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexican, Oklahoma, and Texas, offering resources to Republican and Democratic party officials in each state, state and local candidates and election officials, campaigns, and others to reinforce election cybersecurity defenses and best practices.
Contact: Adam Clayton Powell III (703) 848-5232 or acpowell@usc.edu; Emily Gersema, (213) 740-6973 or gersema@usc.edu; or Ted Kissell, (714) 316-8808 or tkissell@usc.edu
USC and regional experts will lead discussions on cybersecurity and cyber safety, disinformation and misinformation, crisis response on Thursday to help improve election cybersecurity in Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexican, Oklahoma, and Texas. Also included will be updates with up-to-the-minute reports on new election security developments and a report on free resources available from federal agencies and private industry.
“On Thursday we will present the best of what we heard visiting all 50 states, both in person and virtually, including best practices for everyone in campaigns and elections,” said Adam Clayton Powell III, executive director of the project. “We are a national campaign, and our candidate is democracy.”
WHAT: USC Election Cybersecurity Initiative
WHO: Speakers will include:
- Hon. Asa Hutchinson, Governor, State of Arkansas
- Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, D-New Mexico
- Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas
- Maggie Toulouse Oliver, New Mexico Secretary of State
- Thomas Hicks, Chairman, U.S. Election Assistance Commission
- Kim Wyman, Senior Election Security Lead, CISA, U.S. Department of Homeland Security and former Secretary of State of Washington
- Michael Coden, Associate Director, Cybersecurity at MIT Sloan and Senior Advisor, Boston Consulting Group
- Joseph Marks, Former Cybersecurity Reporter, The Washington Post
- Clifford Neuman, Director, USC Center for Computer Systems Security; Senior Project Leader, USC Information Sciences Institute; and Associate Research Professor of Computer Science, USC Viterbi School of Engineering
- Sarah Mojarad, Lecturer, USC Viterbi School of Engineering
- Dave Quast, Senior Vice President, Red Banyan and Adjunct Faculty, USC Annenberg School of Communications and Journalism
- Maurice Turner, Election Security Analyst, USC Election Cybersecurity Initiative
- Adam Clayton Powell III, Executive Director, USC Election Cybersecurity Initiative, and former USC Vice Provost
WHERE: Zoom Event. You will receive credentials upon registration.
WHEN: Thursday, September 15, 2022, 12:30 pm MDT – 2:30 pm MDT / 1:30 pm CDT – 3:30 pm CDT
REGISTRATION: To attend, register here:https://usctenthworkshop2022.eventbrite.com Zoom Event. You will receive credentials upon registration.
MORE INFORMATION: The USC Election Cybersecurity Initiative, supported by a generous gift from Google, is an independent, nonpartisan effort to strengthen election cybersecurity.
In 2020, workshops were held for each of the 50 states, and featured hundreds of state and local officials as speakers and panelists and dozens of state university partners. Since 2021, USC has been conducting ten regional online workshops for all 50 states. Participants in USC workshops have included more than 5,000 election officials, campaign workers, and civic leaders in all 50 states.
The initiative is led by the USC Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership and Policy, established by University Professor Geoffrey Cowan, who is the principal investigator for the USC Elections Cybersecurity Initiative. For more background on CCLP, please visit its website.