Troubles at the Election Assistance Commission could undermine the effort to safeguard the 2020 presidential contest from foreign meddling
on complaints of infighting, high turnover and cratering morale. The Department of Homeland Security, which works with state election offices to secure their networks, has no permanent leader after former chief Kirstjen Nielsen resigned in April.
Russia’s 2016 interference dramatically raised the profile of the agency and its work, forcing it to make election security a priority and spurring calls to boost its budget and staff. Newby has also prevented staff from participating in election security events, like conferences, panels and. The second former employee described hearing from EAC staffers who said, “We’d like to do this with a conference, but Brian says no.”
He said he couldn’t respond to the claim about him blocking work on best-practice documents “without knowing what those documents are.” He said he wasn’t “aware” of having stopped work on any initiatives. Senate Rules Chairman Roy Blunt , whose panel oversees the EAC, said in a statement that the agency “has a responsibility to ensure that the employees that it appoints are doing their jobs.”
“I have stopped using him as an information conduit to the agency as a consequence,” the researcher said.
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