Remote Testimony Beamed in Via a Strong Connection
While Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, the subcommittee’s chair, and other participants were in offices, Kelly gave her testimony in the truck’s cab, with horses in the background.
“It went really well. The old truck was a great little coworking space, and honestly, I was doing cartwheels that I had such a strong internet connection,” Kelly says.
During a nearly two-hour roundtable discussion, participants talked about how the Senate can use technology to remotely debate and vote during a major crisis, such as the current pandemic. Portman and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., have introduced a resolution to allow Congress to vote remotely during national emergencies.
On the day of the virtual hearing, the subcommittee released a report explaining that the Senate can use off-the-shelf technology to secure remote voting, including encryption, blockchain and multifactor authentication that includes one-time passwords and biometric scanning.