Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas talked about election security and cybersecurity threats to the U.S., among other priority issues, at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on July 26 aimed at DHS oversight.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., asked about the most significant threats facing the 2024 elections, and Mayorkas identified “three threat streams” that could potentially impact the election process.
“One is the threat of disinformation propagated by the nation-states of Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran,” stated Secretary Mayorkas.
“Two would be the cybersecurity threat – something that we are always vigilant in guarding against, and it is because of that threat that we seek to build redundancies in our election systems to best protect them,” he said.
“Third is something that we saw manifested last year, and that is the threat of physical intimidation of individuals at the voting booth,” the DHS Secretary said.
Mayorkas made it clear during the hearing that DHS is “very focused on each of them,” and that the agency will collaborate “with local jurisdictions and give them advice as to how they can best secure the facility and the integrity of the voting process.”
Also during the July 26 hearing, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., took Mayorkas to task about security on the U.S. southern border, along with the rollout of the CBP One Mobile Application, which serves as a single portal to CBP services including immigration.
“You’ve taken this app, and you’ve digitized illegal immigration,” the congressman asserted. “And you’ve scaled it to the moon,” he continued, adding “you’ve got everybody downloading it like the Disney fast pass into the country never to be subject to actual removal – just removal proceedings as you call them.”
Earlier this year, DHS expanded the app to allow for more immigration applications and related appointments.
