The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) partnered with the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) and National Association of State Election Directors (NASED) to host a tabletop security exercise to improve election security. This exercise, titled Tabletop the Vote, has been held in previous years. This year marks its seventh annual exercise. 

This tabletop security exercise unites private sector partners as well as federal, state and local officials to enhance election security efforts. Participants in the exercise shared best practices for incident planning, preparation, identification, response and recovery for both cyber and physical incidents. 

CISA Director Jen Easterly, and the Election Infrastructure Subsector Government Coordinating Council (EIS-GCC) Executive Committee issued a joint statement on the collaborative exercise: 

“Tabletop the Vote provides an opportunity for the election community as a whole to plan for potential scenarios and improve our response plans within the safety of a training environment. Exercises like this allow us to prepare for incidents that occur before, during, and after an election and better understand response and recovery efforts. They also assist us in identifying how to best tackle today’s increasingly complex threat environment by refining communication and intelligence sharing practices, and identifying potential process improvements. Tabletop the Vote is just one example of the ongoing efforts of state and local election officials and the federal government to ensure the security and resilience of America’s most critical democratic process.”

The group concludes, “Elections are run by the thousands of state and local election officials nationwide who work diligently to administer elections that are secure and resilient. It is because of their hard work Americans can have confidence in our nation’s elections.”