Cyber Security and our Elections – Unpacking Fact From Fiction from so called “Cyber Experts”
SSV President Sue Liberman welcomed all in attendance and introduced SSV Board members. VP and Program Committee Chair Margie Swanson introduced today’s speaker, the Honorable Denver Riggleman, New York Times best-selling author of “The Breach,” former U.S. Congressman of Virginia’s 5 th District and current President/CEO of Riggleman Information and Intelligence Group.
Denver with his extensive background, experience and training in Intelligence and Risk Reduction, set about to educate us on the three burning topics in American democracy about the “DATA” involved – electoral security, election policies, meeting the challenge, and the debunked conspiracy theories such as “stealing the vote,” that surrounded previous elections. His first topic was to pose the question of who thought Virginia elections are fair, safe, and secure – but he did not have us answer – just think! He highlighted the state of this issue by pointing out that the money spent on data manipulation and misinformation is now the highest it has ever been in the history of our country. He challenged the audience to look more closely at the “news,” by questioning where the information came from, the source and how the conclusions put forth by the news reporter were reached. Denver reminded us that most election data is not connected to the internet and that to breach it would require hundreds of thumb drives in multiple locations to interfere. He covered all the conspiracies like ballot dumping, broken algorithms, mail in ballot fraud, illegal votes, and dead voters – emphasizing that none of these actually happened. In the case of so-called illegal votes, he pointed to the data that said in the history of US elections, .0003-.00025% or between 45 and 3750 votes were ever found to be fraudulent and thus never had a chance to change any election outcome. He did leave the thought in the air that officials have reduced resources (lowering the budgets of SISA, the FBI, the State Department’s GEC, and DOJ to investigate and prevent election insecurities) since the prior election to protect the 2026 midterm and the 2028 federal elections. Denver said that in today’s world, the need for more and better risk analysis for new and greater threats arise with increasing menace.
In parting, his personal thoughts were these: the inflammatory rhetoric and deployment of federal troops to America’s cities have had some intimidation effect but the backlash has been far greater – motivating people to protest and go vote. He hates bullies and he asked us to look closely at the disenfranchisement policies and procedures before the elections as he believes these are the tactics to best steal the vote. He fielded pointed questions from the audience about the “Prevention Paradox,” the oppressive feeling of “reciprocal data” and then he reminded us that there are 340 million Americans eligible to vote so hand-counting the ballots is unrealistic and unnecessary.
Sue Liberman made the following announcements regarding upcoming programming:
November 12 th – Can Democracy and Capitalism Co-Exist, UVA Professors Sid Milkas, Margaret Riley,
and Scott Miller bring their rich and relevant talents to answer the question.
December 17 th (please note this is the third Wednesday)- Annual SSV meeting and Election of
Officers. The meeting will be at the Center at 2:30 p.m., and will include refreshments, a request for Audience
Participation in small groups to aid in planning future programs