Okay welcome everybody we're going to get started. Thank you all very much for coming. My name is Owen Miller and I am a lecturer here at SOAS in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures. I wouldn't describe myself particularly as a North Korean specialist but I have found myself as part of Korean Studies Lab project which Professor Andre Langkopf is going to tell you something about in a moment and that lab project is about North Korea and it has the title which you see on the screen here so this symposium today really is to sort of showcase some of the work that's being done in this lab project funded by the Academy of Korean Studies and also we have brought in other people we have brought in some PhD students who are working on North Korean history and North Korean international relations in the UK and we're very lucky also to have some scholars who work outside of North Korea and Korean Studies who work on Russia and Eastern Europe who are here to give us some some very valuable insights I think as well. So I'd just like to also welcome you on behalf of the Centre of Korean Studies here at SOAS which is hosting this event and our chair is not here today Dr. Anders Carlson so I will welcome you on his behalf. What can I say about Centre of Korean Studies? It's one of the older if not the oldest Centre for Korean Studies in the UK I'll probably get told I'm completely wrong about that but anyway it was founded in 1987 with of course support from South Korean organisations such as the Korea Foundation and it's been going since then and we hold regular seminars on a Friday evening so if you want to know about those our Centre's officer Charles who is here can take people's emails or you can email him directly and get on to our mailing list and of course we also organise events such as this one one-off events and small conferences and so on. So yeah please you know if you haven't been to Centre of Korean Studies events before please have a look at what we're doing and come in in the future. In terms of today I think people have probably looked at the programme I'll just quickly put it up here. It's as you can see we have quite a long session this morning I'm hoping that we can have short five minute break in between speakers we are being generous and allowing each presenter to have an hour of time you know to give their presentation and for the discussant to respond and for questions and comments from the audience so therefore we have a more or less three-hour session in the morning but we will as I said hopefully be able to have breather in between speakers I don't think there's anything else I need to say oh well there is tea and coffee as you've already discovered there will be tea and coffee again in the afternoon there is also going to be a buffet lunch outside there will be it's really first come first serve that's not an invitation to go and attack each other to get at the food but it is you know a reminder that scarcity is real and okay that's yeah that's about all I have to say really yes and welcome to everybody I'm going to hand over to Professor Lankov who's going to say something about oh yes there are exits please use them in the case of an emergency well I should say unfortunately you know so as always seems to have fired alarms at the most inopportune moment so please do expect one in the middle of someone's talk oh now I need to improvise well Professor Lankov is on the to open the floor for questions yeah so basically everybody everybody here is interested in North Korea and you know that North Korea has not only bad press worldwide it has a strange press it's seen as a kind of joke something irrational or something comical may well maybe sometimes it's irrational and comical but can you find me a country which is 100% rational 100% not comical it's quite irrational I will not talk about some peculiarities of the British political system yeah having said that so what's important however to stop exoticizing North Korea to have a serious look at the country maybe very unpleasant place because they would never like to live there well under salmon expat but yes place is a great deal of its own problems but still a place where after all 20 something million people live where over the last 75 five years maybe about 100 million people have lived their lives and it was not a life of kind of clones or irrational human beings it was in the life of normal human beings overwhelmingly and it's very good that we occasionally more friend more frequently have opportunities to do serious research on North Korea it's past it's present and to a small extent to it's definitely unpredictable future and this is a task of our laboratory which is fortunately we would like to express our gratitude is supported by the Korean Korean taxpayers and their loyal servants the academy of Korean studies so and our result we have a group of roughly 10 people and our goal our goal is to produce roughly equal number of book lengths academic studies of different things related to North Korea it can be market economy political system foreign policy popular culture and so on and so on and so on and not only books of course as the academic articles and we also have some series of seminars and two conferences two short conferences one of he one of which you attending for which I would like to express my gratitude and we will try to we'll do our best to make sure that everything will be interesting for you that you are not going to be disappointed for being here and we have another conference in June in Korea so those who are you happen to be in Korea you're also most welcome saying yes South Korea I think that I I I think that conference in North Korea is not going to happen for the next 50 years but you never know yeah so thank you right I should I should add that I'll be chairing the first session and that we're our first two speakers Tatiana Gabrusenko from Korea University and Xiaoning Lu who is my colleague here at SOAS in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures who will be the discussants they are both joining us on zoom so our first just our first speaker and discussant will be on zoom and then after that it will be live people in the room so hello everyone so I am I'm going to present today on I changes which North Korean culture underwent in 1980s and I would just first to start with an apology because my understanding was that I will have only 15 minutes for presentation but I see you are twice as generous to us so it means that I had to rework a little bit my presentation to extend it because I try to when I presented the talk and the paper I shrink myself as much as possible but in any case here I'll try to compensate it now by in my talk so first what I'm going to talk about today North Korean culture of the 80s this is in my understanding this is a much underestimated phenomenon because when people consider consider this on this background of the other socialist cultures which underwent perestroika and preperestroika type of reforms which actually aimed some which aimed some rework and retreat from this and change of the socialist model North Korean culture of the 80s seemed to be quite stable and it didn't have so nothing nothing seemed to happen there while the whole nation the whole world of socialist culture was undergoing radical changes it seemed to stay stable but this is very wrong precision wrong impression because in fact North Korean culture of the 80s it had its own unannounced cultural revolution unannounced because it was not not comparable to what they had in the other in the other cultures of socialist bloc but still it's these changes were also very important but the changes were similar not to this case of perestroika but rather to this case of so so or typo as seen in russian so that was the process of the process the process of reforms of socialist culture without discarding of the ruling ideology but at the same time retreat from the mobilizational narrow immobilizational patterns and moving toward some so far precedental relaxation and liberalization the process which they experienced in the soviet union 1950s 1960s after Stalin's time so that was a similar kind of similar kind of changes which North Korea had so alexander loop chick later described this describe this process as socialism with human face so something which aims to widen the artistic horizon of socialism in order to make the system work better and some aestheticization romanticization of the communist ideas and the kind of renaissance of the communist ideas in the soviet union that's the process which happened there but North Korea North Korean culture in 1980s experienced something very comparable to what you see in the soviet union in that time the process which was denied and rejected in North Korea in 1950s and North Korea in fact chosen instead the course of national Stalinism or sticking to this previous moguls just strictly narrow mobilization way that's that was what happened in North Korea 1950s and 60s but in 1980s they seem to have its own delayed so this cultural revolution of the 80s and unlike the soviet process which happened in the soviet union allowed the announced by the soviet the soviet policymakers in North Korea this process was silent but we of course can have some hints on these changes in some speeches of Kim Jong-il who called for overcoming of overcoming of the overcoming of some strict schematics called for depiction of human relations and culture more humanly free way to be brought more broad minded etc so some hints show us that indeed North Korean leader tried to implement some processes in North Korean culture but even more than that this occasional occasional calls occasional speeches of the leader the culture itself shows the strict just this this shown us the wide implication of this new new artistic methods and topics if briefly describe all these patterns of the early 80s which North Korean culture in early and later and late 80s which North Korea introduced it was a general cooling of the militant spirit of the previous of the previous Cholima like culture and overall the slower and quieter culture a sentimentalization of the conventional political topics such as biography of Kim Il-soon or Korean war and even political campaigns they now were promoted through softer and more personal forms this process in North Korean culture led to introduction of the new people in new cultural figures the most important of whom was of course Rijunggu and Kim Seryon they were the new the new cinema scenario writers who turned just upside down the whole discourse before making it more sentimental and lyrical and also they worked on this introduction of more humanistic concept of the hero and generally it was written from the patterns of unbending passionaries who had no remorse or no no remorse or doubts and instead introduced hidden heroes so those characters of humble self humble self conscientious people who do not expect any rewards for their selfless work for the society and many of these characters had strong Christian illusions just with the Christian saints especially this was really important change in North Korean culture which was strongly inter-Christian before that in many works of Rijunggu we see direct quotation from bible and some biblical comparison with bible citation from bible of course without any without you know mention of the source but the parallels are very clear also this culture at this moment increased general realism and came closer to what actually was the society was actually interested in a discussion of highly topical social issues was the was the subject of this new cultural works so the characters who balance in between family and the work responsibilities or the the characters who have to choose between consumption and ideological purity some family problems problems of socialist economy etc also North Korean culture of this moment of this decade reintroduced for glory and tradition in North Korean cultural discourse we see the renewed works of classical literature who emerge as entertaining and ideological tools you see many works based on folklore and classical stories just action cinema and melodramas such as Hong-Gil-Don in Kokchon story of Wondal of course story of Chun-Han and etc this was campaigned with the increase of romantic political comedies and melodramas important part of this discourse was a retreat from one-dimensional black and white enemy you see more complex images of foreign life more images of foreign friends and dependent enemies something which was inimaginable in North Korean culture just the decade before the enemies in general even the enemies who are not going to repent they still are presented as complex people just complex characters and also you see the emergence of counter narrative of the centers of socialism and even the motives of corruption and struggle with corruption in North Korean works of culture of course this topic I'm just talking now about the general background cultural background but of course it's a huge huge topic which is impossible to cover even in 30 minutes speech which is allowed to me now so I would like to investigate only one case study one case of when this which was changed in North Korean culture in 1980s and it was the topic of the Korean War this change in discourse of Korean War how it was just how all this changes of the ages just implemented were implemented in this discourse why I'm choosing the Korean War because this is one of the most important topics of North Korean of North Korean culture one of the central topic which because the mythology of the Korean War and South Korea as the separate entity became cornerstone of North Korean nation building process and never stops it's still Korean War is reconsidered constantly it's presented in many cultural works it's one of the most central topics in North Korean since the very beginning since 1950s the Korean War the discourse of Korean War had strong Soviet cultural influence but as we see even the cultural influence of the Soviet just so Soviet cultural influence it also has has changed too because different angles were implemented different angles were considered and the ages were the moment when North Korean discourse of the Korean War retreated from the militant pamphlets of the past and of the war more humanized and lyrical patterns just because it was about influence cultural influence on North Korean on Korean when North Korea this influence was really apparent really easily palpable is just visible even at the first glance as this famous poster which call which call the warriors of the Red Army save us so this is the Soviet post of 1942 and this is the poster of North Korea which as you see presented this the Korean people also calls for Korean people's army participation and saving people of Korea peaceful people of Korea but you see the structure the general images and the slogan is exactly the same also maybe it's Soviet war time films and fiction they became real bastards in the debate and they still are for example one of the favorite movies which North Korea really enjoy and it was the novel and the the fiction and the film made after this novel it's a young guard it's a romanticized narration about life and horridness of the members of anti-fascist underground organization young guards in the hands of German fascists one of the most popular films in North Korea also the Soviet influence on North Korean discourse was promoted through the poems of Chugichon the founding father of North Korean poetry of Soviet Korean origins who created the early narrative of Korean war such as in his view big poems very well known in Korea especially Korea is fighting Chosun Saunda so he established this pattern of presentation of the Korean war as the national liberation struggle so exactly like this World War II was presented in the Soviet Union following the Soviet mode of war against Hitler Korean war was presented as victorious national liberation war against foreign aggressors Americans it had no ideal of civil war so South Koreans present as victims or odd and often unwilling collaborators but one of the feature of this discourse which was extremely important in the early North Korean discourse of Korean culture it was rejection of pacifism and wolfphobia as they call it so this these things of personal pain of suffering separation with the loved ones etc they were strictly discouraged people who tried to challenge this discourse were severely and quickly punished for that typical were the Im Hoa and Kim Nam Chon the campaign against them began immediately after they they made they they published the works where I know no Uji In Inya by Im Hoa and Kim Nam Chon was his short story honey in 1951 and it was the deadly crime of pacifism because they portrayed try to portray war through personal feelings of people they wrote a lot about human suffering separation with the loved ones etc the other famous victim of this campaign against wolfphobia was Kim Chul now famous North Korean writer the poem which extremely irritated the policy makers at the moment it was Kim Wok-Tang Chul a button of military uniform so the poem narrates about the baby who has lost his mother and war and when a soldier takes him in the arms the baby start to suck a button of his uniform instead of the nickel of his mother so and the poem has the stanza sorry my dear I can liberate your country your home town but I can't bring you back your mother and the poem was rejected as two lyrical soft and lacking political meaning so any retrieval from black and white picture of Americans was considered a political crime as well typical was an attempt of Som Anil the Korean writer to rewrite a scenario of Hans Surya's jacals into more psychologically persuasive narration so but this this motif and a little bit complicate the image of the enemy American enemies it was quickly rejected reacted by the critic Kim Jong-Suk he says that in the play youngies are portrayed not as simple beasts but as people who have some consciousness this diminishes our hatred to the enemy very typical reaction and probably the most radical typical example of this narration were partisan movies they were presented even harsher versions of Soviet Stalinist film the most typical of them were a partisan boy of 1951 a partisan maiden of 1954 so the actors who played in these films they were stars of this time and indeed they were distinguished actors such as Han Chor, Moon Yebun and the others but it did not influence the result the result the works were apparently beneath the artistic level so here is the the the snapshot from Moon Yebun as the partisan maiden in the film 1951-54 so the common patterns of the partisan movie so they can be summarized by one phrase which was consistently repeated in this film there is no time for tears yet so all the characters the heroes in this movie they were presented in a type of fighting machines who reacted with two enemies atrocities acting very impulsively and apparently not knowing any fear at all so and this impulsiveness eventually leads the character to cruel deaths at the hands of the enemy but the reaction to this death should be revenge and no tears of these fallen heroes of course the heroes are guided and inspired in the sections not by some personal feelings of love but rather by the mother party so this is the snapshot from the film our partisan boy Sonyon Baltisan made in 1952 and this is the Moon Yebun as a heroic mother of the young partisan and another son the young communist so the enemies in this film as hero anti-heroes they presented as irrational beasts who killed just for fun without any provocation and any meaning for example that was the moment when the soldier simply see the woman with the baby in her in his arms he takes his pistol and shoot her why he's doing this it's completely it's completely irrational act why he's doing this it's just the mother it's a passerby on the street but that's a typical typical episode in this film all of them are physically ugly played by Koreans but with the big plastic nose here this is the typical typical anti-hero here irrational rude physically ugly and just the killing machine so of course why not Koreans did it at the moment it was more or less understandable because it was an attempt to dehumanize the enemy and make it a very easy target to destroy because you won't feel any any feelings to the character like that you would not associate associate yourself with the with such an ugly beast and of course the beast should be destroyed the relations between characters in the films like that they were also lack any personal warmth or any personal feelings this is the episode from the film the partisan boy so this is the young communist the older son of money bonds hero and heroines and this is your younger this is your younger son so this son the older son he is arrested by the police by by this occupational forces but when he meets with her in the prison instead of hugging his mother or trying to console her somehow the young communist instead rushes to her and the first phrase he was she issues his mother I have remained loyal to the communists that's what he says uh and so when he is shot at just uh before in front of your mother's eyes she stays completely her face stays completely emotionless she doesn't show any tears etc so most important thing for her that son fulfilled his his duty before the party and then the next scene will be the execution of the young partisan so the the young boy who is playing this role but again he is he tries to revenge his mother and his you know his older brother he also goes to the desk without any you know without any human feelings so this is just the desk of three fighting machines that's that's what we can say about them and the songs which were accompanied these films they were also very typical they were much like songs very harsh and the lyric was completely in accordance with the music they were in harmony with the music and a very famous song in north korea the song of young partisan which is very well known in north korea the song of 1950 a tool which was later reintroduced in the film of nineteen ages as well for north korean cultural works is typical these films are the the songs are reused many times so let me show the song to you so you see this song i'm not saying that the song is bad or unpopular the song is very popular in north korea by the way all kids know it in school and it's associated with any with any talks about young heroes it's a popular song but still the lyrics which tells about blood revenge and something associated extremely always fighting it's a typical part of that but in 1980s this cinnamon fiction about the korean war has changed the intonation under the influence of general liberalization and humanization of the discourse you see more images of human people of humane humanistic people's army sentimental images and the typical case of this was the film vol midore it was the example of this new cinematography about korean about korean war so vol midore tells narrates a tragic heroic episode of the korean war the battle for the island vol midore in june in june 1950 when a coastal most korean battery unit had to hold the important piece of this territory for three days against this well man us forces or everybody was killed here but the major focus of the film characteristically it's not the fight and sins but rather the motifs which were which drive the soldiers during the suicidal missions so what actually why they're doing this this is the focus of the film the film proved to be extremely popular in north korea and if we try to analyze the attractions these attractions are mostly related to this new presentation of heroes the new presentation of the korean war so the characters are driven by sentimental recollections about peaceful pre-war country so the images of the loved ones and the family members with whom they are separated now it's always emerge before them the soldiers and the officers they are related to each other with with warm brotherly relations they support each other as family members and of course the major the embodiment of this new mood of the wartime film war themed film was the son melodious son of the 17 year old radio operator yung gok which narrates about beauty of the countryside of korea the song i know it now so the it was performed and played by the suyun the young actress who was the star of wall middle extremely popular actress now in oscar is still still working in oscar in cinema but that was her debut extremely popular debut here so let me show you this song so this you see that in this song you see all this film in brief in just in brief sequences what happened with the heroes they all are killed one by one but still what is important that they are all connected with love with connection just with love with care for each other etc what was really interesting that one of the typical a sign of the liberalized humanized humanized approach to this culture of war became the sequence of this death the first character to die at this hands of the enemy is this the most peaceful character this is the chief of the chief of this military union very funny bubbly guy who likes to make fish and soup so he just reading about this special soup which is going to to cook for the commanding officer and for this little girl you know yung gok and at the moment of when he was fishing he was killed by the enemy the same as yung she died while trying to reconnect the storm the storm telegraph course and she did it with clutching her hands and then died as well so she sacrificed for people but even this smiling relations between between the softness of the characters they present as the contrast to all their heroic deaths and all their this the harsh here is which they have to this harsh heroic actions which they committed here so this the film actually laments this death of every every hero and the moment which is emphasized that that everybody had something to do at this on this land so this commanding officer played by trechan by trechan so he was not able to to propose to his girl whom he love so this the chef he was not able to meet with his only daughter and the girl yung gok she was not able to finish the school so everybody has something to do but they had to stop the life was broken by by the wool and by all these things and the interesting case is the american enemy so here of course he is the anti-hero here but still he is presented as the anti-hero with some consciousness in some moments when he witnesses the relations of north koreans between each other when he witnesses these cases of heroes he writes the the far well note to his to america to his american friends saying that the u.s.a. can win the battle but not the war with such a people so north koreans are not the intruders they are protecting their land etc so we see the character who is not probably repainting but at least understands the high noble spirit of this korean hero heroes in fact this is a little bit of you know moving from the previous from the previous models of black and white models of of the just of american enemies important thing to remember however that this film overall was not followed the revisionist course of perestroika style art when which tried to undermine the values of previous discourse and the film does not carry pacifist messages and doesn't question the value the necessity of this death the necessity of korean war the film as i told you laments the fallen heroes but it make the audience understand that the sacrifices are no not in vain the characters died protecting their the country they fulfill the orders before the country and we have to cherish this sacrifice war middle has has strong legacy on oscarine in oscarine culture and the first thing which the most important probably overall legacies was the change in lyrical in the songs devoted to the army and the war soon after war middle you see the emergence of this such classic sonnet tell me about soldier sloth marche duree peonsai saraner very popular very beautiful lyrical song or the song pretty girl yippie knee which was produced in 1989 so all the songs combined the motif of self-sacrifice of the characters with soft lyricism and just the stairs over them and more important it was the motif of the existent existential victory of the hero over death especially typical was the song pretty girl the song which is which narrates about the girl who threw herself under tank with the grenades but still this the land which she protected it's still thriving and after her death this the birds sing the flowers bloom and we live happy life on the land protected by this by this girl the how we have a wood can we say about this the change of what can we say about the other legacies of war middle and this the other lyrical songs about the lyrical works about Korean people's army victories in 1990s the the songs were also augmented with the general the idea of liberalization melodrama and sentimental mood of the 80s in 1990s it was aided just augmented by general positive mood so the positive cherry mood which was carried by which was carried by the new narrative of nos korea in 1980s 1990s the narrative of the artist march which had the slogan the the slogan even if we go a steep way we had to go it with we had to go it with smile so the smile actually covered touched every subject of nos korean just of nos korean art and nos korean culture included the culture related to war related to tragic incidents etc so the music in the songs were extremely positive so something that you would never without lyrics if you don't if you don't hear the lyrics you would never understand that the song is about war or something tragic and you know sad so the song is extremely positive and the images are extremely positive even moreover the films of the the films and works of culture of 1990s and of 2000s they moved toward the other side they almost completely made completely disappear any tragic moments of korean war in general so typical in this regard is the song going to the front so the this going to the front the song which was performed by by moran bond band and again you would never understand without this lyrics that you are talking about soldiers who are going to fight and apparently meeting some at least some chances are that they will die in this in this battle but the song would never give you this impression so let me show this to you oh yeah that's all so I can uh this is at least you see the impression of the song you see the uh just things on the uh the covers uh this some snapshots from uh this from this video clip uh accompanied this song and uh so I think it's more or less clear that this uh this is we're talking about something very positive experience so very positive and funny and interesting etc so that's how this this new war theme songs look like in oscarine so this is all what I would like to say so this is an end of my presentation thank you very much thank you very much so shall I come in yes please shouting uh yes dr lou please take okay so first of all thank you so much tatiana for this wonderful presentation I am a specialist in chinese socialist cinema I'm not a specialist in korean cinema so my comment is really from an outsider's perspective um so we all know each socialist country has its own unique historical trajectory but some experiences do echo across the national borders within this socialist world your presentation just reminded me how many parallels we can draw actually between north korea culture and chinese culture in the 1980s because the dominant theme in chinese cinema in the 1980s was also to search humanism but uh our search for humanism was motivated by uh the party sanctioned self-reflection on the traumatic past especially the catastrophic 10 years of the cultural revolution and so the filmmakers they also adopted a male dramatic mode poetic mode to search the so-called humanity to rediscover humanity so stories value humanism humanity over collectivity etc and the films you showed me also reminded me of the heavy soviet inference on chinese cinema etc so there are so many parallels I'm really glad to to hear your presentation so my first question is really about the the larger motivating factor behind north korea's general liberalization in the 1980s was that motivated by external factors such as the changing geopolitical order in the whole world or something coming from within for instance ex socioeconomic pressures from from the people or because I think in your draft you mentioned about King Chung Ye demanded the writer's artist to raise their creativity and the political insights to respond to the developing reality so what is that developing reality okay and the second question is about the lyricism so the clip you showed me you showed us I think it's very interesting that I'm not sure about maybe it's electronic musical instruments in the background in the soundtrack in the 1980s chinese filmmakers also use that electronic instrument it was like considered as a very modernist modernist or very modern at the time so my question is really about how do you understand lyricism of course you show the lyrical intonation for example the soundtrack but how about a cinematography narrative structure is this lyricism related to for example pre-modern korean culture or traditional you know poetry etc for a painting yeah so these are my two questions thank you yeah thank you very much so yeah my question will be first about the reasons thank you very much for for your good reading of my very short and very imperfect things which I send to you I'm really sorry yes but still yeah about this external factors you know the factors which actually moved just stayed behind these changes in 1980s I think these factors just first thing to say that we don't know for sure so I can only guess because we don't know any all this all the things were all just still not not declassified so this is the thing which is close to us so but what we can say I think that's multi multi factors so many factors which employed just which influence this process and when we're talking about noscaria we can't get rid of we can't we can't avoid them the discussion of the personalities of the leaders and this is really important I understand that the social processes this they are important things they're driven by many many factors including economics and social factors etc but in noscaria when we discuss in noscaria there's such a strictly controlled society we can't avoid talking about the personality of the leader and I think this is the case when the personality is really important because when we see when we look at the way how noscarian cinema and you know the culture was led by 1950s it was the person who led it who controlled it it was the father leader so the first leader kim jong-il kim kim olson i'm sorry kim olson so the person who had a very limited interest to art in general but at the same time the person who was very concerned about his you know the safety of his leadership because 1950s was the moment when it was very unstable moment for his leadership for his supremacy in noscaria he was it was challenged by pro-soviet just so soviet faction and chinese faction in noscarian in noscarian leadership so he was under danger and of course all this talks about liberalization all this soviet style at the moment of eastern european style was something completely inappropriate for kim olson because he not without reason he would he considered this to be a bomb which was thrown under his you know under would thrown under his leadership this is one factor he was unsafe in this moment and the other factor is that he was the person who is quite deaf i think in to all this cultural niceties etc he was not mausodon and not stalin and not kim jong-il he was the person who is completely senseless to such things you know he was not artistically he was not interested in any artistic collaboration just elaborations so when the culture was under his control they the writers they try to avoid all this complexities all this double meanings all this gray areas they try to be very straightforward just much like styles so this clear cut way but his son was very different personality just his personality it was much more complex person so the person who first he did not have the fears of his father for the legacy so his country was under his strong control at the moment so he he could be safe you know he could be you know completely secure in his position and on the other hand he was the person who was extremely interested in art because we know now that if not his legacy of him as the son of the great leader he would probably become very good noscarine cinema maker he was the cinema guy who was he who liked all this complexities who loved all this double meanings and i think that when the power over culture was in his hands he could play you know it was his playground where he could do whatever he wanted so that's why he so he tried to implement lots of foreign foreign cultural things we know for example that him journal he had huge collection of foreign movies and that is why in world me though and the other films made under his leadership we see lots of foreign influences for example this the film world middle can find lots of parallels i won't specify this right now that's one thing and of course the other thing was less important factor but still the fact it was of course the factor of external influences because the world was shaking the world was changing just in this moment and even pionyan was actually playing with the idea that probably moving toward relaxation more of relaxation more of liberalization would be a good idea because if we look at the soviet union if we look at china nothing wrong happens with them and probably it would be a good idea here but they didn't move it in perestroika style uh understandably because it was their country they didn't want to lose control but they still played with the idea of some relaxation but at this process they try to shut it a little bit or not shut completely but try to uh downplay it a little bit in 1990s when uh there was the collapse of the soviet bloc when kim kim olson personally witnessed uh by by television the execution of nekolai chaukhescu and he understood that liberalization would be probably have to wait for a little bit more for korean art etc but as we see it was it it failed to completely uh so this liberalization of the ages it never shut was shut completely it was it had legacy to to uh to repeat uh later to develop in on a little bit different uh ground uh but still it was that was the factor of external external influences they were important uh important things too about lyricism this is really interesting thing a very complex very difficult question which you asked me because what is really difficult very very different about north korean version of lyricism in comparison to south korean or in korean in general and pre-liberation korea is very positive style of lyricism very positive style what i mean by that if you ever come uh if you ever read uh contemporary south korean novels for example so the first thing which we want to say uh just to do after reading a novel you will go and hunt yourself i think it's so they're so depressing they're so they're so awful because my first uh i was specialized in in oscar in korean literature i graduated from uh yonsei university and specialized in contemporary and i i understood that one year more and i will do something wrong with myself you know after all this often this very very lots of people lots of characters commit suicide lots of characters die of cancer etc etc so it's very depressing style of a style of of uh culture in general and then this regards uh north korean culture actually uh just this south korean culture it's true to almost the pattern of colonial literature because the colonial literature such as uh hyeong-jin gwon or anybody else like that they also are very negativist they are very depressing style of literature in north korea however no matter what topic they touch they in their attitude to even saddest moments of life they remain very positive and why this happens like that uh i would say that it's probably something to do with this soviet uh literature soviet culture which is we tended to be more positive for chinese culture as well but anyway north korean lyricism if place it on this background of you know of this whole korean culture this is very happy lyricism in general it's very happy very positive lyricism very even the works which are you know which touch very deadly topics of war of illness or something like this uh so the typical is the son uh ye pune the son pretty girl which actually uh playing with the idea or the girl he went to the front she was so so pretty blah blah blah blah blah but then the girl go and she she committed suicide under just she threw herself under tank blah blah blah blah but we are still happy to hear so even this tragic utterly tragic motif is presented in very positive style and that is why i would like to say that north korean style of lyricism is it's it's a little bit different from what we see in korean culture in general that's my observation so i hope i could answer your questions thank you very much really appreciate i think you have a question yes um so we're predictably running a bit behind schedule um i feel it would be unfair not to have any questions from the floor we have one i see already in the q and a here um perhaps we could take this question are there any questions in the room i will maybe have take one question i see one hand up here would would would you like to ask a question yes yeah and we just to emphasize we need to do this quite quickly um and and professor gabrasenko could answer quite quickly that would be good yeah um i'll speak up sure thank you professor for your presentation um my question is about soviet representations in the north korean popular culture so very quick question how is soviet union's military support depicted in the north korean movies that means korean war are they even mentioned or depicted in any case because i was reading north korean's official account of external relations which was published in the 1983 i think and they kind of obliterated the soviet vestiges giving providing support to the north korea's asian founding so i wonder if this is the case and well in the popular culture whether you see any reference to soviet union or not just stylistically but in the narrative itself do you see actually uh any any mentioning of soviet union supporting north korean story and korean war in those movies thank you thank you okay i hope you heard that professor gabrasenko i would like also just like if you could take at the same time the question that is and it's it's also sort of related in a way because it's in the q and a can you see that just a moment so the question there is about foreign characters portrayed in in films can you give some examples did korean actors play them do russian actors ever appear in korean films so both questions are kind of related so perhaps you can take them together they're about depictions of soviet role or or depictions of russians or other foreigners in north korean films you know this about it's very big big big question again i will try to narrow it as soon as much as possible so it depends on the time of the work of popular the work of popular culture because in fact when if in 1950s so at the moment of soviet era in north korea this the service were referred to as not as participants of koreans just of korean war liberation of korea but at least as people who had some just made some help to north koreans but then for political reasons of course when this north korea distanced from from this soviet union so this mention of these characters it radically decreased only to be about again not about korean war in korean war the participation of the service were completely downplayed and not only the service whose which role was not very not comparable to the role of chinese but even the chinese participants they were they were downplayed in north korea and to the extent that it's a little bit denigrate and just contempt in references to the people like that so though we know we know this actual role of the actual role of chinese so-called volunteers in korean war but in north korean literature and arts and the films they were just referred to as only as some helpers of korea assistance of korean of korean not as independent not as people of not as the people of independent values so something like shim purim how to say this so this helping boys helping hands to koreans and no more as for just in the so just the soviets they were normally related the reference to the soviets in north korean culture was related mostly to the moments of liberation of korea and the moments of the first after liberation period especially the films like eternal any eternal friend about the exploiter yakov nevichenko who saved kim wilson from who saved kim wilson during the assassination attempts to assassination 1946 was extremely important and the actor andrey martynov who played this role he was extremely popular in north korea this the role of yakov nevichenko but it was all related to the later period 1980s not 50s not 70s but only 80s the late ages in fact in the late 80s north koreans produced two works two cinema one after another relating to the heroes of the soviet heroes who died at who died or sacrificed themselves for for korea that was mario tsukanova the film from from five to five i think that that's that was the title of this film so this story was completely fictionalized had nothing to do with the real story of mario tsukanova who died when during the launch of the soviet army in tronjin in 1945 she was presenting at the film again as the helper of koreans as the fan of korean of korean nations so the person who tried to save them from the bacterial bacteriological weapon of japan so who blasted herself in order to blast some den of the japanese who tried to who tried to poison koreans with some bacteriological weapon something that never happened and mario tsukanova was actually she was killed by the she died at the hands of the japanese when she was caught by them captured by them in 1945 so this is a completely different story so they made this completely different story of her but this is this is what we can say not not korean war but the liberation of korea that's that's the historical role of sovets in north korean in north korean films north korean works of art and they had a very important and very big question the area of question is the representation of contemporary russians representations of russians after perestroika and that was an extremely important role which they play in north korean culture but this is this is another story so i will try to keep myself short yeah and so that's thank you thank thank you very much to both of both professor gabrusenko and dr lu for a very interesting session and i will take full responsibility for going rather over time on that session but thank you very much again let's give them a


For those of you who don't know me, my name is Caitlin Peña. I am the Director of Operations and Programs for the Center for Election Science. We are a nonpartisan non-profit that is working to strengthen democracy and empower voters with better voting methods. So the main voting method that we advocate for is called approval voting and it allows you to vote for all the candidates you like and the candidate with the most votes wins. We're currently supporting a campaign in St. Louis, Missouri that would implement approval voting for open nonpartisan primaries there. There's a lot of work to be done still so if that sounds like something you're interested in, there are volunteer opportunities and of course money is always needed so we would certainly be open to donations. I'll stick some links in the chat once I stop talking here but I'm so excited to have everybody here. This is a really interesting and unique and particularly anxiety inducing election year I think for many of us and part of that is because we're concerned about election security, right? So that's why we wanted to host this particular event tonight. So with us today we have Chris Landau. She is the interim co-director for verified voting. Verified voting is an organization whose mission is to strengthen democracy for all voters by promoting the responsible use of technology and elections and you know election integrity is something that they particularly focus on which is what we're going to be talking about today. Chris has worked in nearly all aspects of non-profit management including fundraising operations partnerships and programming and she became passionate about verified voting's mission when she worked as a poll worker in Detroit in 2016 and gained insight into the complex systems behind our democratic process. Chris managed Lieutenant Governor Garland Gilchrist's 2017 campaign for Detroit City Clerk and she also served on Gilchrist's transition team upon his election as Michigan's Lieutenant Governor in 2018 and most recently Chris transformed and led Venture for America's largest national program serving hundreds of young aspiring entrepreneurs. So welcome Chris. And interviewing Chris today we have Aaron Hamlin. He is the executive director and co-founder for the Center for Election Science the organization who is hosting this this call. So with that I'll leave it to you Aaron. I will be moderating the chat just really quickly if folks have questions any Q&A that they want to ask of Chris about election security feel free to drop your questions in the chat probably in about the last 15 minutes or so. We'll do a Q&A and I'll read out some questions from the chat box. So with that I will hand it over to you Aaron. Awesome thanks so much Katelyn. So Chris really want to hear more about verified voting so maybe you can tell us a bit more about what it's all about. It's history some of the programs that it's doing. Would you take it away? Yeah absolutely so we got started in 2004 by computer scientists. They were concerned about how technology was being introduced in elections and the vulnerabilities that it was presenting to our democracy. So as Katelyn said you know our mission is to promote the responsible use of technology and elections in order to strengthen our democracy for all voters. So I think you know one of the things that makes us unique is that we're really focused on that election technology piece and on ensuring the security aspects. So we oppose internet voting. We encourage and advocate for rigorous post-election audits to ensure that the winner won and the loser lost so we can have confidence in that. And we also have an incredible database of voting equipment and use in the United States by jurisdiction starting in 2006. So if you go to verifiedvoting.org slash verifier you can learn a lot more about different technologies and how they're used in different polling locations. So definitely worth taking a look at that as well. So you know in terms of election security there's a lot of different components to it. So you know we support an evidence-based election where paper ballots marked by hand are with an assisted device for those who need it, strong chain of custody, robust post-election risk limiting audits and strong cyber hygiene throughout. And you mentioned your database as well looking at the different types of voting machines used in different jurisdiction. So I would also encourage all the listeners to check that out at the verified voting website. I've used that personally. It's a really well done really nice resource there. Thanks. Yeah we just added or recently added the electronic poll books that are in use as well and you can also people rely on paper poll books versus electronic poll books. So we're always trying to add more features into it but it's a really good way to learn more about voting equipment used in the United States. And so election integrity is kind of a complicated topic. It has a lot of facets you mentioned a number of them. Do you have any like when you're thinking about this personally I know like with with us thinking about voting methods like they're like all these components that could be difficult to really conceptualize everything. Do you have any kind of personal strategies that you use or ways that you try to conceptualize election integrity components yourself like do you. So how do you think about election integrity as a whole like how do you think about that generally. Yeah I mean it is a really broad concept right. I mean I think one analogy we use is that it's like a three-legged stool. You have to make sure that voters have access to voting right like that they can register to vote. Then you have to make sure that people actually participate and that they vote. And then the last piece is that you have to make sure that their votes are counted as cast. And that to me it's sort of like the last step in voter enfranchisement right like making sure that people trust that their vote was counted as they wanted it to be counted. And so everything that leads up to that count and then afterwards like it's all part of election integrity you need all those different steps in place. I don't know if that answers your question but I'm hoping it does. One of the areas that your organization talks a lot about is handmarked ballots and you mentioned before the database that talks about different types of voting machines. And you also have them laid out in kind of different tiers. So how do you see handmarked ballots fitting into that compared to these other types of voting machine setups? Yeah so we support handmarked paper ballots as the primary method for voters to mark their ballots. There's a number of reasons for this but handmarked paper ballots don't work for every single voter. There are some voters that have visual impairments or disabilities that need an assisted device. And so we support handmarked paper ballots with assisted device for those who need them. And so in terms of you know ranking them I mean our website the verify you can kind of see what different technologies are in use. I think one thing that's important to keep in mind is that you need to have fail states in place for when technology fails. So this isn't just for the marking method for a ballot but also for checking in right. So electronic poll books have some benefits but we've also seen them really cause a lot of long lines and a lot of locations when there's problems with connectivity or loading issues or just like failures and so any technology needs to have a plan B and a plan C in place especially when you're thinking about people's voting access right. And so I think for polling locations that are reliant on technology in so many different places that's where it can be a problem. So if every single voter has to mark their ballot with a machine and the machines aren't working or there's not enough machines that can create long lines. If you have ballots that are marked by hand and the scanner is down for some reason you can at least store those ballots while you fix the scanner and then you can so you can like keep voters going through it but you know I have to admit like it's not like it's not always like it's it's complicated right like I was a poll worker in Detroit in Detroit in 2016 there they have hand-marked paper ballots but I did see a voter with disabilities wait for two hours because their assisted device was not set up and that's not right right and so you have to make sure that all voters are able to vote. So in addition to like having it as a fail safe should machines kind of walk out like like I think we're all used to technology doing sometimes as well as like addressing the long line component which we're seeing a lot when some machines are breaking down. Are there any other reasons why hand-marked ballots may make sense so just related to security issues or other or other factors? Yeah I mean it creates a like the voter is verifying their ballot in a very clear way and you don't have to rely on printouts that might have like text that's too small like I know some ballot marking devices the printout is in size six font right and so there's like a whole host of reasons why security experts on our board or on our board of advisors all advocate for hand-marked paper ballots there's just you know there's just this kind of clarity of intention there where you don't have the software involved in the marking. One of the rationales I saw in your site for utilizing hand-marked ballots was being able to conduct audits properly so maybe you can share a little bit more about what risk limiting audits are in relation to elections and maybe why we should think more about them being utilized more. Yeah so 99% of ballots are still counted by computers right so even those ballots that are marked by hand are ultimately counted by scanners most of the time and those computers are susceptible to vulnerabilities they could be susceptible to some sort of like accidental programming error or an intentional one so we want to make sure there's a check on that computer and making sure that we can have confidence that the winner won and the loser lost so post-election risk limiting audits are a way to kind of check that computer count of the ballots and so it's what statisticians recommend there's a number of organizations that promote RLA's as kind of the gold standard of election security of that post-election audit process but in order to have an RLA you have to have voter verified paper ballots because you're looking at those by hand and verifying the count right and that the computers can't do it correctly. Would you be able to as we have some a lot of technical folks that tend to join these calls would you be able to share a little bit about what a risk limiting or a risk limited audit looks like in practice? I'm not the audit expert on the team so it's really hard for me to kind of go into the nuts and bolts of it we do have a lot of audit experts on our team I encourage people to go to our website to check out our audit page so yeah you know we can probably share in the chat some more information about how audits work I think you know like the idea is simple that RLA's provide evidence that the computers counted the ballots accurately we've been advocating them for them for a long time and so and have a lot of experience in different types of post-election audits as well but I will admit that like I was a comparative literature major I am not I am not the statistician on the team we do have those folks on the team who are who are those technical experts and I think that that's something unique to verify voting is that we provide that sort of technical expertise um and there's just not a lot of organizations and people that know how to do that and know how to support election officials with with undertaking something that can feel a little bit scary to them initially but really can be implemented and it really does provide assurance so what we're able to do is partner with election officials to provide that sort of technical expertise so that they can implement the risk limiting audit of the election of um that they choose or that's um required by a state statute but it's another excuse to go to your site because you've got all kinds of great resources there so everyone should be happy to to go over there and also having looked at um some of the folks on your advisory board you've got some real heavy hitters there I think um uh like Matt Blaise is on there you've got just like a bunch of really uh uh uh Ronald Rivest I believe is another person that's on there yeah he's a cryptography expert and he's on our board of directors um so yes lots of tech geeks on our board of advisors and our board of directors and I think it really speaks to how verify voting got started right these were computer scientists technology experts who saw how technology was being introduced in elections and we're really worried about the implications for our democracy and we're trying to figure out ways to advocate for more security and it's sort of counterintuitive to think that a bunch of computer scientists would be advocating for paper but they were and they are and they still are right because we're still we need that as um as a big part of our election security is we need that paper another area that I think maybe folks don't uh think it's much about which is the better registration books whether they should be digital or paper what are your thoughts on this in terms of the can between the two by voter registration books do you mean just like the the voter lists like the the poll books themselves that's right not you're not talking like online voter registration versus not online voter registration correct not talking about that talking about like at the polling station itself yeah so there's a number of advantages to electronic poll books um we did put out like a brief paper on this and um maybe courier you can add it into the chat as well um so like for places that have vote centers for example where voters don't have to go to just one location to vote they could go anywhere in the city um some sort of electronic poll book is helpful because you would know that someone voted in a location regardless of where they went hopefully that makes sense to folks so it also can enable people to update addresses in real time or do same-day voter registration so there are some advantages the challenge is that there's also risks right and there's vulnerabilities in place um so if there's problems with connectivity load issues the device isn't working you have to train poll workers on how to use it it can really create some serious long lines we saw it in Los Angeles and the primaries we're seeing it in Georgia right now with early voting a lot of that's been linked to the check-in system actually um so I think with any election technology you have to make sure that you're planning for these vulnerabilities thinking about what the plan B plan C will be and making sure that those things are in place so we always advocate having a paper poll book backup if you are going to use an electronic poll book um so it's also important like that there's um systems in place for those voter registration lists to constantly be having backups and security measures in place um you know that that's sort of related to the online voter registration like you have to make make sure that there's security measures in place all the way through right because it's all connected and at one point I hear you uh repeating a lot is the interaction between using some of these components like uh handmark ballots and uh poll books and the interaction between that and the long lines uh whereas like I think a lot of the times in the media we hear we see these long lines and the rationale is like oh people are just excited to to vote and uh and we're never going to have these long lines when people are excited rather than pointing to some of these other components that you're mentioning which is like using handmark ballots and physical poll books to avoid some of these breakdowns or limitations of resources yeah and I should say it's not like a it always is a one to one cause and effect there there were long lines in Detroit in 2008 and that was not an electronic based voting system um there have been long lines in places where there are handmark paper ballots so it's not like it's not always so simple um it's what causes long lines is complicated and should be studied one of the things that I find um disheartening and troubling is that like research consistently shows that black and brown voters are waiting in line longer than white voters um and to understand the causes of like why there's that disparity I think it's really critically important and I think it's probably not just one reason right there's probably multiple things right so um are there enough uh devices if it's a device issue was there sufficient training are there enough polling locations period are those polling locations accessible are I mean there's just like transportation like there's just so many reasons why um there could be long lines and it's not just one thing thank you for that those are some really good nuances to pick up on uh looking at uh electronic tabulators for for ballots what kind of concern should we have such as looking at software whether they are able to connect to the internet uh thinking about things like chain of custody what sort of sort of components should we think should we be thinking about when we're looking at uh ballot tabulators yeah so any computer is vulnerable what's important is that you have ways to mitigate both intentional and unintentional problems with tabulation so election officials have um chain chain custody chain of custody and security measures in place for the proper storage of ballots beginning to end um because if something happened with that computer that tabulated you want to make sure that you can then still look at the ballots later after the fact right so chain of custody is super important security measures in place from start to finish and then you have to make sure that any computerized voting system has up-to-date software has been tested um we really like these shouldn't be uh connected to wireless modems they sometimes are um but that's um it increases that risk factor right um and the best thing to do though is to check that those ballots were counted accurately which is why we're such strong like proponents for post election audits and specifically risk limiting audits um so uh regarding uh internet uh connectivity I mean uh if you can answer this answer this do you think it makes sense to have some of these uh devices have a modem in the first place if they shouldn't be connected to the internet so again I'm not the technical expert on the team there is a lot of people who could speak to this in way more detail than I can so I like part of me hesitates to even go there just because it's not really my area of expertise but again like anytime you have that added technology layer you have to make sure you're mitigating for any risks associated with it um the reason my understanding is the reason why some of those are connected to the internet is because of the way they report out results to like central offices or things like that um so there's risks involved with that right and I it's something that we're continuously looking at and that a lot of secured election security advocates including those on our board have advocated um strongly against but I'm not I'm not the computer scientist here but I think it's like the most important thing is to be cognizant of those risks to mitigate against them and to um to to really be aware that our election infrastructure because it's so decentralized it can be a little bit hard to regulate it right and so to be cognizant of the different risks in place in the different jurisdictions in different states because every state slot is different and every voting system is different like all of that has to be happening simultaneously it's a it's a big job and not not one that any one person can do so maybe you can imagine yourself being able to set up an idealized scenario in terms of best election price practices what would that scenario look like to you in terms of going from A to Z from the the voter getting their ballot casting it all the way through tabulation what would an idealized process look like to you yeah so first off an eligible voter should be able to register to vote um they should be able to then vote um whether it is by mail or in person um with as few of her as hurdle uh sorry as few of hurdles as possible um we also want to make sure that that vote was cast um and counted as cast right so making sure that um we trust the results so from an election security standpoint which is our expertise paper ballots like I've said many times strong chain of custody risk limiting audits and no electronic return of voted ballots or voted materials at all um you can't ever bring the risk down to zero so in terms of your like idealized A to Z I think it's really important to recognize that you can't bring the risk down to zero um what you do have to do is set up processes so that you can monitor detect respond and recover from any sort of attack or again like an unintentional um problem and uh that that's that's a nice point that we can always kind of reduce probability but we can't eliminate it all together in many cases we're thinking about the current setup that we have what do you see some of the biggest deficits maybe thinking about some that are just uh moving us as far away from reducing risk and maybe also thinking about perhaps some though hanging fruit that uh election administrators can deal with uh pretty easily to reduce the uh to overall increase uh election integrity yeah I mean I think it's really important to understand and realize that there's just not enough resources and funding for election officials especially in this um really difficult election cycle where election officials are being tasked most of them with running two types of elections they've never run before a large scale vote by mail and a large scale in person socially distanced like keeping in mind all of the different health recommendations from health experts uh in person voting experience and they're having to run two elections that they've likely never run before and to do so on two string budgets like they did pass some initial funding but it really just hasn't been nearly enough in terms of what election officials need um I think that there should also be more kind of federal guidelines for paper ballots and for audits I think there's benefit to the decentralized election process but um in having some of those guidelines I think it can be helpful um they're currently updating the the voting system guidelines um for folks and um there's just there's a number of sorry I got a little distracted by that something was going on with the check um there's a number of things that I think um would help election officials in terms of creating um more secure elections um we're trying to fill the gap between technologists and the practical realities of running elections right um a lot of the election officials um don't come from like a computer science or technology background um and so um we're we try to kind of fill that gap between technology experts and election experts that's one of the things that we're trying to do um and then I guess you know this is something that I think is so critical for folks to understand is that there's like the hacking of the actual infrastructure there's also the hacking of the mind and I think what we're seeing right now is that a lot of people's minds are being hacked in terms of like the trustworthiness of elections even like I think what happened in 2016 with um the evidence of Russia infiltrating our election systems is that it caused this sort of internal panic right um in terms of our election infrastructure and so I think that that's another piece that like is really critical is um doing something around how much disinformation there is right now in terms of social media and misinformation and people don't know what sorts of trust and who to listen to and um that's been a really big challenge as well for for um I think anyone who cares about elections in this country. So I guess I guess like if the budget component wasn't as much of an issue or was limited as an issue do you see any kind of like lower hanging fruit that election officials can can do like given a somewhat sufficient budget or something that may be as much more cost efficient as an intervention to reduce some of these risks? Lower hanging fruit in terms of what exactly sorry? So for instance like you've talked about some of these different types of interventions like having handmarked ballots, risk limiting auditing and also looking at polling books and there are others as well. So are there some of these that are perhaps easier to implement overall that are that are kind of lower hanging fruit that we can implement that are maybe not as intensive or I'm just trying trying to think of given the situation that we have now with the the status quo are there certain things that we can be doing that are a little bit easier to increase election integrity overall? It's hard for me to answer that like across the board because every election jurisdiction state has they're in a really different place for election security and election integrity so like what I would say in terms of like low hanging fruit for Colorado would be really different than for Louisiana or you know what I mean like it's just it's really hard to say across the board this is low hanging fruit. I would say for this election cycle it would be great to make sure that polling locations have paper poll book as a backup if they're using electronic poll books and that they also have emergency paper ballots if they're using ballot marking devices or direct recording electronic devices as well. So I would say like those are two things for those are two things for this election cycle that that could be implemented but like that's that doesn't that's zero relevance to an entirely vote by mail state like for example. So it's yeah it's kind of hard for me to say across the board. Speaking of the kind of the uniqueness of like this election in particular and vote by mail this is quite a bit unprecedented in the amount of people that are doing vote by mail. Are there particular measures or things that we should be thinking about when we have such high vote by mail incidents like for instance others say it's like Oregon I think has been doing vote by mail for a while, Colorado also moving moving forward in that direction and now this year like everybody really kind of taking a a fourth step forward there are there are there some additional measures that we should be thinking of related to voting integrity or election integrity when we have higher vote by mail incidents. Yeah so I'm going to have Corey share in the chat we put out some recommendations early on in the pandemic related to the increase of vote by mail and some of the security measures that we recommend when looking at an increase of vote by mail. I think there's a number of things I mean it's sort of I don't want to say it's too late but it's yeah it like right we're 14 days from the election like there's there's only so much that you can do right now but I think ballot tracking is something that's really critical for increased vote by mail it gives voters like some you know I decided to vote through a mail-in ballot I dropped it off at a drop box in Philly but that's how I chose personally to vote this year and it was really nice to get an email that said hey your ballot's been received right and to be able to track my ballot. I think that thinking about different aspects like that is important when you're thinking about scaling vote by mail and doing so in a secure way. Chain of custody rules have to be really you know thought through for start to finish right for drop boxes for how it's going to work with the post office but a lot of states have done this like you said like there's some states who've done this for a while it is hard to scale it up as quickly as a lot of states have had to do but there are also a lot of folks out there who are helping others do so national vote at home institute and others who I think have been working with election officials side-by-side to help them figure out some of these processes. One other so before we talked about risk limiting audits so what happens when we do see a discrepancy so we see the ballot count and then the risk limiting audit is done and it's showing something that they provides a significant discrepancy over what we would expect so what are the what do you see as the appropriate responses when we do see these anomalies or these discrepancies? Yeah so if you think if there's something that indicates that something went wrong um that's I mean you can start a recount of all those paper ballots to look at what the voters marked and what the what the outcome really should be and you can try to figure out what went wrong with the scanner let's say um so that's one way to correct that. You've also uh in your intro you mentioned internet voting and a lot of the experts just not being a fan of that approach is and that's also a question by the way we we get asset quite a lot even though that's not our area now given that would you um you see internet voting and again this may be one where you don't feel comfortable answering and that's okay to punt it over. Do you do you see particular security concerns specific with internet voting that could possibly address be addressed in the future or all the concerns with internet voting um just something that current or even future technology having a challenge with? Yeah so um the way I like to explain this just to kind of like non-computer scientists right is that the the challenge is thinking about how to do so both securely and anonymously so um you know people will say well I can I can bank online like why can't I vote online well when you're banking online you can check your transaction the bank can check your transaction the store where you bought the shirt can also check the transaction it's all tied to your identity it's all tied to your uh account right there's no anonymity at any point in those processes zero anonymity right um voting is supposed to be anonymous you should be able to vote and not have someone be able to find out who you voted for right and so I think the challenge is not just in the um in keeping it secure but in keeping it both secure and anonymous and I think that that's the piece sometimes when you explain that to folks who say well I can vote on my phone or I can bank on my phone why can't I vote on my phone when you explain yeah but then like how would you do so secretly truly secretly yeah like for the entire country like it's just it's not like our technology is not there um and that's why I think there's such um you know like merely unanimous agreement between computer scientists about the fact that we are not there in terms of technology uh uh what do you normally do when uh uh someone responds uh something something uh blockchain uh related to uh uh internet voting yeah so blockchain's designed to keep information secure once it's received it can't defend against the multitude of threats that um exist prior to receiving that so voters can't verify their votes if they're entered into the blockchain correctly without compromising that ballot secrecy um so there's there's papers out there about blockchain um it's all like a lot of researchers or a couple researchers out of MIT um did a study on votes which is a blockchain voting application um and so it's definitely worth checking out again I'm not I am not the computer scientists out of MIT um but those people are on our board um and they have done research on it and so we can share a little bit more about it um in the chat well um oh uh with uh with our work we are all about different uh voting methods particularly with approval voting and different voting methods have their own uh uh challenges and advantages to each individual one uh so you have voting methods that involve uh ranking scoring approving as many as you want and of course the classic choose one and these voting methods have different properties such as uh some require central tabulation where you have to have all the ballot data uh together in one central location before you can even begin uh tabulating them uh others of them allow for precinct sum ability where you can take totals from different precincts and then uh some of those different precinct totals together to get your your grand total so not requiring a central tabulation so given some of these uh voting methods with both the different type of data that they have the different properties that they have such as central tabulation and precinct sum ability how does uh do those factors how do those factors make a difference with regard to election integrity when we're thinking about um uh whether to uh uh perhaps looking at different machines or hand marked ballots or even other concerns like risk limiting audits yeah so every it everything depends on how it's implemented um so there's not really an efficient way to audit all all these different voting methods um so it tends to be a bigger problem for alternative voting methods than a simple vote for one system in terms of that post-election audit like I I think of the the pictures of my audit team out in the field and they have these tally sheets and I don't know how those would work in a in these different kind of alternative voting method systems but you know again I'm not the statistician but I know that it creates a lot more challenges um so it's just it's hard to hand count ballots when there's many different ways to vote in a contest um so it's important to think about the nuts and bolts behind a voting method and whether voters are able to actually verify the final result so it sounds like what you're saying is the simplicity of the voting method plays a role into some of these other components potentially yeah the simplicity and then also how it's actually implemented I mean um yeah there's a number of of kind of practical elements I think that come into play when planning uh or submitting audits now I think we've have an anxious uh chat ready with some extra questions so I haven't been looking at it so uh Katelyn do you want to start taking questions for Chris? Sure yeah I've got a few here that have folks have added if anybody else has questions if you haven't put anything in the chat feel free to go ahead and add some questions there now we'll try to get to them um so at the very beginning Kathleen Bradley um asked she says we use many iPads for electronic poll books and nothing but microfiber cloth is supplied to poll workers to clean the screen what do other jurisdictions use I and she said I should have added that dirty screens may result in a problem in reading signatures um so I don't know if this is a something that you can address Chris um definitely not our it's not like verified voting since we're too interested in how people are cleaning the different devices I have heard of people um this is sort of a different question but um I've heard of people using q-tips as kind of an alternative to having to use a touchscreen during the pandemic I've also seen like little finger covers that have been um given out to um voters in different jurisdictions where it's required but for for screen painting I feel like I'm I feel like I'm not able to help unfortunately sorry that's okay hopefully hopefully Kathleen you guys can find some other better alternatives all right and then we've got a question from Paul Burke this is another question about risk limiting audits if it's a bit too technical we can direct him maybe you all can direct him to the website or another resource but he says is risk limiting audits are risk limiting audits useful where the public can't see marks on sampled ballots who are bringing from storage Paul I'm not sure exactly what you meant about the bringing from storage but does does that question make sense to you Chris um yeah so I think that there's um a component of risk limiting audits that we advocate for around transparency to the public um and making sure that um like if if the goal like the goal of it is in part to increase public confidence and transparency in the process I think helps increase that public confidence one of the challenges that I think election officials are facing right now in COVID times is how to how to make certain processes including tabulation or for those audits viewable to the public during the pandemic in a safe way we've seen some people get really creative with it in terms of like live streaming certain events and things like that but again like a lot of those take resources and planning and a lot of election officials are underwater we do have a paper on the observability of audits um which Corey can drop into the chat which might be of interest to the viewer who asked that question and I'm sorry your name is escaping me but yeah we'll share that because we we did put out that paper um a while ago awesome all right and then we've got a question from sass um he says while states like Washington and Oregon have had phenomenal success with vote by mail new york has not in their 2020 primaries what are the most important things to get right about vote by mail and do vote by mail exclusive elections disenfranchise any voter demographics that we aren't told about yeah so um it's there has definitely been some problems I think that we've seen in terms of trying to rapidly scale up vote by mail um so valid votes should count and invalid votes shouldn't most jurisdictions have processes already in place to minimize verification problems um and that sort of control measure but it isn't perfect um I think we have to figure out what the scope of the problem was in some ways I think it was good that we had so many I don't I mean no one thinks anything was good about the pandemic right but having all these primaries happen has allowed a lot of jurisdictions to learn a lot of lessons before the general election and so you have to assess the scope like what number of signatures are rejected which ones aren't is there a discrepancy um and there really needs to be there doesn't need to be a process in place to verify voters um but there's also a way to cure a signature mismatch in a lot of these places like in Oregon in Colorado um and so making sure that you have the opportunity to correct that so like if a signature is mismatch for example that a voter can correct that so that they're still able to vote is something that we um advocated for in those in those recommendations that we mentioned um around vote by mail during the pandemic and how to make sure that you still have security measures in place awesome that's really helpful um and I don't I don't know if you have any insight into this uh Chris but sas was also wondering about you know if there are any voter demographics that maybe are disenfranchised that we buy vote by mail that we don't we're it's not as obvious to us um and I know that's not exactly in in the mission of verified voting but I don't know if you have any information on that there's a good amount of research on this um it's interesting because I think um you know you can look at Colorado's stats on voting and they have been able to increase turnout quite a bit um but in terms of like the signature mismatch um there it has been shown to disproportionately impact certain voters um sometimes younger voters sometimes people of color and also older voters where maybe they're having problems with dexterity your arthritis or something like that um so um voters with disabilities there's sometimes there's different measures in place to give people an option if they can't sign their name for some reason every state is different and I don't pretend to be a law and in these different aspects or I don't pretend to be an expert in these different aspects of the law um so so that's important to realize the other the other category of voters that I think where I think vote by mail is challenging is people who move a lot um and people who are from low income backgrounds tend to move more than those from higher income backgrounds um so making sure that there's always an option for people to vote in person I think is really critical um and to make sure that that option is available on election day and ideally beforehand as well um so you can't you can't exclude in-person voting I think from from the options available to voters ever good to know all right sorry the other category of people that just came to mind is um Native Americans um because they may not have like sometimes they have the PO box and you can't use that or whatever so there's there's a number of reasons why those communities are often disenfranchised by vote by mail as well so like I said you have to make sure that you still have the option to vote in person absolutely that's really important to remember um all right this one is less of a question but I more of a comment but I thought it was interesting sandy mentioned that she's found that as a poll worker one of one of the reasons for slowdown of voting processes is people not knowing what district they vote in so then they have to take the time to look it up um and then also people assuming that they're still on the books but actually they've been purged so she says she thinks all citizens um should who are eligible should be eligible to vote and electronic poll books that have everyone listed would take care of those slowdown issues so it seems like maybe um the the important thing would be to have those electronic poll books right that are all up to date but having um having the paper backup like you said chris yeah and the paper backup is probably only going to be for that polling location because you know you can imagine a paper backup for all of Los Angeles so yeah don't be ginormous um it wouldn't really work um but it is actually the this question speaks to one of the reasons why we have a campaign called check your reg um so we really um support people checking their voter registration consistently um it's a good way to spot if there's there have been any problems in the voter roles um and it also can give you more familiarity in terms of your precinct number and like things like that that sometimes I think people don't like know instinct I mean some people do right but not everyone does but if you're checking it more consistently I think that you're more likely to know about those things and we can share I think um we have a page for our check your reg campaign in case you want to download any of the digital assets and share it on your social media perfect all right it looks like right now I just have two more questions um I'll I'm going to do a last call if anybody else has additional questions they'd like to add please go ahead and stick them in the chat now um all right so Chip Spangler asks what would you think of a system that utilized non-networked DRE systems that also printed out paper ballots that were then scanned in in an optical scanner such a system would have three vote counts available the DRE machines the scanner totals and the paper ballots I think that I think that such a system would provide more options for verification polling locations could have paper only ballots available as backups and also for mail-in voting I know that's a lot so let me know if you need me to repeat any of it I think I'm not quite understanding the difference between that and and ballot marking devices um I I think we can share our paper on why we don't advocate for ballot marking devices for all voters um so yeah I think that that's I I'm a little bit confused by that question um I am not the voting technology expert we have a lot of those people on our board so I'm going to go ahead and rely on some of the policy pieces that we've put out um prior to this um call for folks to check out that would answer some of those questions awesome all right then we've got one from Craig Dimitri he is in suburban Philadelphia he says I have been categorically recommending to everyone who asks me vote by mail or drop box it's safe secure COVID safe for voters and poll workers and to make a plan to vote vote as early as you can I've been told that every mail-in ballot will put less stress on the in-person voting system because it means one less person on election day under pandemic conditions is this the best practice for me to recommend um so I it's really hard for me to say recommending a best practice for voting method because it's just so person-specific um just like as an example right like my husband's a physician his schedule is really wonky like voting by mail is great for him he um there's not a drop box location like now there is that when he was wanting to vote like there wasn't a location that was close to us um anyways it's just it's a really there's like really personal decisions with voting and how people vote some people really like to go in person they want to get that voting sticker on election day um I'm not a public health expert in terms of like COVID spread um I think like it's really critical for voters to have options right now and to have options for voting and so I think we've seen some states increase those options because of COVID which I think is a good thing but um yeah it's just like there's just so many factors transportation accessibility language issues um I mean I was talking to a voter the other day who spoke no English like mail and she had applied for a vote by mail ballot because she was she's very nervous about COVID but she's having a really hard time understanding the method she's never voted that way before and speaks no English so it's just like there's just such personal decisions when it comes to voting it's really hard for me to say like yep that's what you should recommend for everyone because like that I don't know I don't know everyone's story yeah I think I think the bottom line that you got to there Chris is options right we need as many options as possible um to make it as easy as possible reduces as many of the barriers and make sure that everyone no matter their personal story their background their accessibility whatever has access right all right we've got two more questions then and then we'll wrap up so from sass again I think this is a really interesting question sass asks people posting pictures of their filled out ballots online is an issue that is not going away do you think this means that protected voter anonymity has become irreparably broken what should be our collective reaction to this issue um to people like posting their selfie with their voted ballot I think that's the question more or less that I'm getting yeah um uh every you know there's different laws and different states around this um so the question was how to prevent it Caitlin or what was that um yeah what what should be our collective reaction to this issue do we think that people I don't know maybe people aren't as concerned about anonymity as as they should be yours that were you know as they previously were or what are their actions that we can take to help prevent this is there any you know particular reaction we should have to people posting these pictures maybe thinking is it is it a big issue if someone explicitly kind of opts out to the anonymity um I you know like that's really not an issue that verified voting has um that I know of and I like I joined in February that we've um really been focused on because we're focused on the verifiability of elections um I think just because like one person over shares on the internet doesn't mean that we should like make it a thing for everyone to be able to do so right like these are these are principles that are enshrined in our constitution for a reason um so yeah I don't know I don't know if that answers the question at all but I'm just like I don't know if I can control what like people post on tiktok or on like Instagram um I think there might be like some public norms around like why anonymity as far as voting matters um that like you know maybe needs to be revisited but I don't I don't know if that answers the question at all that's my thought I don't know Erin if you have any thoughts on that I uh I won't comment I'll leave it I'll leave it to you or to uh as you can uh or you can punt it to the uh to the other folks okay all right then we've just got one final question and then we will hop off of here so um this is another question about uh RLA's um if we need to refer to a resource that's fine so Paul Paul says Dr. Dr. Stark says ballot comparison RLA requires an independent unhacked tally of 100 percent of votes does anyone know how to create a publicly verifiable tally I am I do I do not have the the knowledge to answer that question well so I'm not going to try um again yeah it's just really not my expertise um we'll share one of our resources in the chat I'm not sure if it'll answer that question do you mind if I ask one final question Kayla and Chris so should it matter which polling location uh someone goes to that that is should a system really require individuals to go to a particular location rather than um it being I guess agnostic for the voter to allow them to be able to cast a vote regardless of the polling site that they're at yeah that's really not verified voting's issue in a lot of ways right so like if you think about it like we've been really focused on what happens after someone casts their ballot not where they're casting it so I don't you know I don't know if I have an answer to that question totally fine totally fine yeah like you're asking basically about like vote centers right versus like being required to go to the one you know like church across the street you know that's like three blocks down yeah I mean I think as far as like accessibility is concerned like people should have options that are close to where they live so that they don't have to rely on transportation and any number of things um but our concern really hasn't like our focus is really around technology use in elections and really the verifiability of our election results and what happens after someone casts their vote it makes a lot of sense yeah and and don't feel bad we get lots of questions about election issues that are completely unrelated to our particular mission all the time um it's you know it just happens so it's totally okay um well thank you so much chris for taking the time to be here with us tonight this is a super important topic it seems like people are really engaged there was lots of comments lots of resources being shared in the chat so um to anyone who did join I would definitely recommend that you download that chat log because there's lots of good links in there coming from kori at verified voting and there's lots of other good links and information from fellow audience members um but thank you all for attending uh like I mentioned we are the center for election science and we have lots of we have a campaign going on right now in st lewis we have lots of chapters and other campaigns in the works for the coming year or two so um we're we're getting really excited about bringing approval voting to more cities and empowering voters with that if you would like to donate erin has put our donate link in the chat and definitely go check out verified voting's website like I said there's lots of links to verified voting in the chat they have so much good information so many good resources about election integrity and security um and everyone please stay safe and go vote in whatever option works best for you