EVN 2025 – Walking the Tightrope: Improving Election Resilience Amidst Tension
The Election Verification Network 2025 Annual Conference will be held March 27-28 in Washington DC at the Constance Milstein and Family Global Academic Center at New York University, at 1307 L Street, Washington DC (Google Maps). The opening reception will be held on Wednesday, March 26th.
Join us for a stimulating and timely conference that will also feature keynote speeches on the top election security issues. Attendance at EVN 2025 is by invitation. Please contact us for more information.
Agenda
This program may be subject to change
Download the program agenda (PDF)
Wednesday, March 26
2:00pm “Coffee Break” Opening Reception
NYUDC, 1307 L Street, Washington, DC
3:00pm Welcome and Election Trivia Contest
Kevin Skoglund, Citizens for Better Elections
Chair, EVN Coordinating Committee (CoCo)
5:00pm Happy Hour/Dinner on your own
Thursday, March 27
8:00am Breakfast/Check-in
Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation Lobby and Pearlstein Family Grand Foyer
8:30am Welcome & Introductions
Abramson Family Auditorium
Kevin Skoglund, Citizens for Better Elections/ Chair EVN CoCo
Matt Bernhard, Enhanced Voting, Conference Co-Chair
Grace Gordon, The Turnout, Conference Co-Chair
8:45am Keynote Address
Abramson Family Auditorium
Meagan Wolfe, Administrator of the Wisconsin Election Commission
2024 winner of the EVN Public Service for Improved Elections Award
9:45am CSSE Panel: Collaboration Between Election Officials and Law Enforcement in the 2024 Election
Abramson Family Auditorium
Moderator: LaTasha Hill, Brennan Center for Justice
Panelists: Tina Barton, The Elections Group; Chance Walkama, Laramie County, Wyoming
Description: Election Day presented a unique set of challenges, with new threats and heightened pressures on those tasked with ensuring a safe and accessible voting process. The cooperative efforts of law enforcement and election officials, years-long preparation, and coordination across all government levels proved critical in conducting safe and secure elections. The session will consist of a panel of CSSE members to discuss how CSSE helped election officials and law enforcement coordinate and prepare for the 2024 election through tabletop exercises that included unknown substances, swatting, threats and intimidation, and AI and cybersecurity scenarios.
10:30am Break
Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation Lobby and Pearlstein Family Grand Foyer
10:45am Training Students as Cyber Navigators to Bolster Election Security in Virginia
Abramson Family Auditorium
Moderator: David Levine, University of Maryland’s Center for Democracy & Civic Engagement and George Mason University
Panelists: Massimiliano Albanese, George Mason University; Karen Hoyt-Stewart, University of Virginia; Duong Nguyen, George Mason University; Susan Reed, City of Manassas VA
Description: This panel will explore the success and impact of the Virginia Cybernavigator Internship Program (VA-CNIP), which has demonstrated innovative ways to enhance election security while addressing workforce challenges in election administration. The program has supported responsible and effective governance by helping local election officials meet rigorous security standards, identifying weaknesses in election systems, and implementing measures to mitigate risks. By leveraging college students with cyber expertise, VA-CNIP has proven to be a cost-effective model that not only bolsters election security but also fosters trust in the electoral process.
11:45am Lightning Talk # 1- Pursuing Effective Election Audits to Confirm Outcomes and Build Trust
Abramson Family Auditorium
Presenter: Susan Greenhalgh, Free Speech for People
Description: The presentation will be based on a paper currently in process that examines which elements of a post-election audit are necessary to provide publicly available evidence to confirm the outcome of an election is correct. The paper and presentation will take a close look at the post-election audits conducted after the 2024 election in the seven closely contested swing states and will examine if the audits conducted after the November election meet, or don’t meet, the criteria for effective, trustworthy, meaningful, and reliable audits. Participants will come away with a clearer understanding of the audit process in these states and the strengths and weaknesses of current auditing practices, and what can be done to improve them. The session speaks directly to improving the resiliency of elections.
12:00pm Lightning Talk # 2- Do The Results Justify The Process? A New Perspective on Election Audits
Abramson Family Auditorium
Presenter: Genya Coulter, OSET Institute
Description: Despite significant developments in election verification over the past 25 years, such as risk-limiting audits and a move to voter marked paper ballots, public confidence in election outcomes has not always reflected this. Would a focus on auditing election processes give voters more reassurance regarding election outcomes? This panel explores the merits of routine process audits in election administration, while being mindful of the potential for future weaponization.
12:30pm Annual EVN Awards Ceremony
Abramson Family Auditorium
Doug Kellner, Kellner Herlihy Getty Friedman Law, LLP
Chair, EVN Awards Committee
1:15pm Annual EVN Awards Luncheon, sponsored by Verified Voting
Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation Lobby and Pearlstein Family Grand Foyer
2:15pm Keynote Address: International Perspectives
Abramson Family Auditorium
Sarah Cooper, The Carter Center
3:15pm Easier, Cheaper, More Resilient: New Ways that Mathematics Can Help Election Officials
Abramson Family Auditorium
Moderator: Dr. Brad Sturt, University of Illinois, Chicago
Panelists: Dr. Laura Albert, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Dr. Alessandro Arlotto, Duke University; Prof. David Shmoys, Cornell University
Description: Mathematics has played a central role in making modern elections more secure and trustworthy, with examples including risk-limiting audits, cryptography, and rigorous logic and accuracy testing. This panel will discuss new and innovative ways that mathematics and operations research can help officials use their limited resources to conduct elections that are resilient and trustworthy. Diverse topics will include the security of vote-by-mail, ballot design, and more.
4:00pm Break- Sponsored by The Turnout
Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation Lobby and Pearlstein Family Grand Foyer
4:15pm The State of Auditing in Georgia
Abramson Family Auditorium
Moderator: Will Adler, Bipartisan Policy Center
Panelists: Matt Bernhard, Enhanced Voting; Blake Evans, Georgia State of Elections; Joseph Kirk, Bartow County, GA
Description: Since 2020, the state of Georgia has deployed multiple auditing techniques during their post-election process. This includes a risk-limiting process that in 2020 escalated to a full hand count, a OCR-based ballot image audit, and in 2024 a pilot transitive ballot comparison audit combining the two. In this panel, participants will discuss the variety of lessons learned by Georgia election administrators about standing up these auditing processes, including why the audit typically examines more ballots than a typical risk-limiting audit would. The panel will also discuss learnings from the new ballot image audit process and what insights it brings into how voting equipment in Georgia works, as well as what parts of both processes can be improved going forward.
Friday, March 28
8:00am Breakfast/Check-in
Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation Lobby and Pearlstein Family Grand Foyer
8:40am Welcome & Introductions
Abramson Family Auditorium
Kevin Skoglund, Citizens for Better Elections, Chair, EVN Coordinating Committee (CoCo)
Matt Bernhard, Enhanced Voting, EVN Conference Co-Chair
Grace Gordon, The Turnout, EVN Conference Co-Chair
8:45am Keynote Address
Abramson Family Auditorium
Cathy Darling Allen, former Shasta County Registrar of Voters
9:45am Effective Advocacy
Abramson Family Auditorium
Moderator: Pam Smith, Verified Voting
Panelists: Susannah Goodman, Common Cause; Gowri Ramachandran, Brennan Center for Justice
Description: This panel will examine efforts to improve election practices over the past few decades, focusing on lessons learned and highlighting new areas for advocacy going forward. Key topics include moving virtually every jurisdiction in the U.S. to paper ballots prior to 2020, the expanded popularity of post-election tabulation audits, and the key takeaways from advocates for how these policy goals were accomplished.
10:30am Break
Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation Lobby and Pearlstein Family Grand Foyer
10:45am Effective Technical Advocacy
Abramson Family Auditorium
Moderator: Dr. Audrey Malagon, Mathematical Association of America
Panelists: C.Jay Coles, Verified Voting; Dr. Stephanie Singer, Campaign Scientific
Description: Panelists will share details of specific cases where technical advocacy helped advance election security. They’ll also share what they’ve learned about advocating around technical topics, like election audits, including effective communication strategies and lessons learned.
11:45am Verifying Non-Voting Election Technology
Abramson Family Auditorium
Moderator: Mike Garcia, Center for Internet Security
Panelists: Saige Draeger, Verified Voting; Brian Glas, Cloud Security Partners; Aaron Wilson, Enhanced Voting
Description: Non-voting election technologies (electronic poll books, voter registration systems, election night reporting solutions) are fundamental to public administration of elections in the U.S. This panel discusses the RABET-V model for verifying non-voting election technology from the perspectives of the program administrators, assessors, and technology providers who have piloted and gone through the program. The panel will cover how the program works, what products are covered, what standards it uses, and what election officials and advocates can do to support the broad adoption of RABET-V.
12:30pm Lunch
Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation Lobby and Pearlstein Family Grand Foyer
1:30pm Building Resilient Elections: Frontline Poll Worker Security, Voter Access, Policy, and Data-Driven Solutions
Abramson Family Auditorium
Moderator: Dr. Natalie M. Scala, Towson University, College of Business & Economics and Center for Interdisciplinary and Innovative Cybersecurity
Panelists: David Garreis, Anne Arundel County Board of Elections; Daniel Griffith, Secure Democracy Foundation; Dr. Lia Merivaki, McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University
Description: The goal of this panel is to draw from academic / practitioner partnerships to apply data-driven and research-driven insights into the election administration process. We will highlight two partnerships: (1) Towson University’s Empowering Secure Elections Lab (TU ESE) and the Anne Arundel County Board of Elections 5-year long partnership, and (2) the newly formed McCourt School of Public Policy partnership with the nonpartisan, nonprofit organization Secure Democracy Foundation. The academic / governmental partnership between TU ESE and Anne Arundel County has led to actionable impacts to improve polling place security and reduce insider risk associated with poll workers. Current work in the partnership involves understanding voter experience in the county with an early investigation on how to improve voter access, participation, and engagement in elections. The McCourt School partnership with Secure Democracy focuses connecting election officials with academics to research and improve election resilience.
2:30pm Accessibility and UOCAVA Voting
Abramson Family Auditorium
Moderator: Rachel Wright, Council of State Governments
Panelist: Grace Bannasch, Shutesbury, MA; Josh Benaloh, Microsoft Research
Description: The Military and overseas voting population face a lot of the same challenges of accessing the ballot that the Disability community does. Often, solutions that would benefit one of these communities would benefit the other. This panel will talk about ways to improve access for both communities, encourage collaboration in improving access for voters in these communities, and address the security risks and challenges inherent to expanded access.
3:30pm Accessibility and AI
Abramson Family Auditorium
Moderator: Abdiaziz Ahmed, The Brennan Center for Justice
Panelists: William Gates, Director of ASU Mechanics Democracy Laboratory & former Maricopa County Supervisor; Katie Harbath, Duco Experts
Description: This panel will explore the transformative potential of AI in breaking down barriers to voter participation, particularly for underserved groups. Panelists will share practical examples of AI-driven accessibility tools, lessons learned from implementation efforts, and strategies for balancing innovation with equity. The discussion will also examine how election officials, advocates, and technologists can collaborate to ensure AI benefits all voters equitably and responsibly.
4:30pm Closing Toast
Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation Lobby
This conference is sponsored in part by:
Brennan Center for Justice, Enhanced Voting, OSET Institute, The Turnout & Verified Voting