The Federal Bureau of Investigation has unveiled the details of this year’s National Election Command Post.
The command post, operating 24/7 during election week, is in place at FBI headquarters to fight off any election security issues, threats, and crimes.
In a video from the National Election Command Post, James Barnacle, deputy assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Investigative Division, detailed preparations for this year’s command center.
“We feel like we’re well-positioned to handle and triage information that comes in,” Barnacle said. “We have the people in place, we’ve identified the right people at different agencies, we’ve developed those partnerships over the last few years, and now were going to put everyone together, co-located, and we are going to go through a process.”
The National Election Command Post receives information about complaints from the FBI’s tip line, one of its field offices, or through state or local law enforcement. These can include "criminal threats such as threats to election workers, foreign malign influence, cyber threats and acts of domestic violence," according to Barnacle.
“We assess the information, we triage it, we run it through our indices, we share it with our partner agencies, and we talk to [the Department of Justice] to assess that information and see if there is a violation of federal law -- if there is, we action it,” Barnacle said.
Whether there is or isn't a violation of federal law, the information is still shared with the FBI’s 55 field offices and also with state and local partners.
Barnacle said operations have strengthened over the years.
“We’ve changed. Our response is more robust,” he said.
When Barnacle started working election command posts in 2012, he said there were about 15 to 20 people servicing them. This year, there are 80 FBI personnel, in addition to about a dozen partner agencies.
After every election, the FBI conducts an after-action assessment and reviews what did and didn’t go well. Then, the agency makes a recommendation in writing for the next election to improve processes.
The National Election Command Post opened on Nov.1 and will operate until at least Nov. 9.
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