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The Lawfare Podcast: Nate Persily and Alex Stamos on Securing American Elections

Jen Patja, Susan Hennessey, Alex Stamos, Nathaniel Persily
Tuesday, June 11, 2019, 12:00 PM

More than two years after the 2016 presidential election, new information continues to seep into the public about the extent of Russia's sweeping and systematic efforts to interfere in the U.S. democratic process. With the 2020 presidential election on the horizon, last week, Stanford's Cyber Policy Center published a report on securing American elections, including recommendations on how the U.S. can protect elections and election infrastructure from foreign actors.

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More than two years after the 2016 presidential election, new information continues to seep into the public about the extent of Russia's sweeping and systematic efforts to interfere in the U.S. democratic process. With the 2020 presidential election on the horizon, last week, Stanford's Cyber Policy Center published a report on securing American elections, including recommendations on how the U.S. can protect elections and election infrastructure from foreign actors.


On Monday, Susan Hennessey spoke with two of the report's authors: Alex Stamos, director of the Stanford Cyber Policy Center's Internet Observatory and former Chief Security Officer of Facebook, and Nate Persily, Stanford law professor and expert on election administration. They talked about what happened in 2016, and the enormously complex landscape of defending not just election infrastructure but also preserving the integrity of the information ecosystems in which Americans make their decisions about how to vote, including the possible consequences of regulating foreign media.


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Jen Patja

Jen Patja

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Jen Patja is the editor and producer of the Lawfare Podcast and Rational Security. She currently serves as the Co-Executive Director of Virginia Civics, a nonprofit organization that empowers the next generation of leaders in Virginia by promoting constitutional literacy, critical thinking, and civic engagement. She is the former Deputy Director of the Robert H. Smith Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier and has been a freelance editor for over 20 years.
Susan Hennessey

Susan Hennessey

@Susan_Hennessey
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Susan Hennessey was the Executive Editor of Lawfare and General Counsel of the Lawfare Institute. She was a Brookings Fellow in National Security Law. Prior to joining Brookings, Ms. Hennessey was an attorney in the Office of General Counsel of the National Security Agency. She is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the University of California, Los Angeles.
Alex Stamos

Alex Stamos

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Alex Stamos is an adjunct professor at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, a fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, and a visiting scholar at the Hoover Institution. Until recently, he was the chief security officer of Facebook.
Nathaniel Persily

Nathaniel Persily

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Nathaniel Persily is the James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School. He is the director of the Stanford Cyber Policy Center and the former research director of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration.

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