State & Local Government Policy, Business and Technology

‘No bar’ to what election officials shared on Election Day, DHS says

StateScoop: As voting culminated Tuesday and vote-counting continued into Wednesday, Department of Homeland Security officials said that a virtual “situational awareness room” where federal, state and local officials shared intelligence about cyber activity and other potential disruptions with each other was largely successful as an information-sharing space on Election Day.

Over the course of Tuesday, the room — operated by the federally funded Election Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center — saw participation from about 500 election and voter-protection officials, IT staff, vendors and representatives from social media companies and political parties. And while DHS officials repeatedly described the cyber activity observed on Election Day as “another Tuesday on the internet,” there was a flutter of activity inside the virtual war room.

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