Physical security
Running elections that voters trust requires preparing for emergencies and ensuring security to safeguard critical infrastructure. Robust emergency planning, physical security, and cybersecurity demonstrate a commitment to safeguarding the people, places, materials, and data involved in running secure and transparent elections. This is one of three standards that define excellence in emergencies and security. This draft standard will be updated based on feedback from the election community.
Standard
Your election office maintains the security of physical spaces to protect people and materials during administration, voting, processing, storage, and transit. To achieve this standard:
- You use security strategies to protect people, election assets, and physical spaces.
- You have a current plan created in partnership with relevant authorities to address a variety of security needs.
- You have relationships with local and state authorities to maintain security and provide ongoing advice, and you understand when and how to access federal support.
- You work with security experts to complete physical security assessments and implement necessary recommendations.
- You regularly communicate with and solicit feedback from staff and poll workers on their physical security needs.
- You actively monitor your security controls, working with partners outside your office as necessary.
- You train staff and poll workers in physical security best practices.
- You inform the public about the physical security measures taken by your office.
Why this standard matters
It is important that we are explicit about the underlying why for each standard. While not attached to measurements, the intended impact of an election department achieving this standard is that:
- Election departments promote the safety of staff and voters through proactive security strategies.
- Election departments are actively prepared to prevent and mitigate threats.
- Election departments recover quickly when an incident occurs.
- Voters trust the integrity of the election process and voting results when they are confident in the security of physical spaces and materials.