1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Election Technology Research Act of 2019 . 2. National Institute of Standards and Technology (a) Voting systems research The Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, in collaboration with the National Science Foundation as appropriate, shall carry out a program of research on voting systems, including— (1) the cybersecurity of different components of such systems; (2) end-to-end verifiable systems; (3) internet-enabled voting; (4) the accessibility and usability of different components of such systems; (5) voter privacy and data protection; (6) methods for auditing elections; (7) the interoperability of system technologies; (8) means for providing voters with the ability to easily check whether a ballot sent by mail has been dispatched to the voter and whether the voter’s marked ballot has been received and accepted by the appropriate election official; (9) the reliability of various approaches to voter authentication; and (10) such other areas of research as the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology determines to be appropriate and related to the security and integrity of elections for Federal office. (b) Elections systems center of excellence (1) In general The Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology shall make an award to an institution of higher education or an eligible nonprofit organization (or a consortium thereof) to establish a Center of Excellence in Election Systems. (2) Collaborations The Director shall ensure that the Center of Excellence includes a collaboration of institutions of higher education, nonprofit organizations, private sector entities, and State and local election officials. (3) Purpose The purpose of the Center of Excellence shall be to— (A) conduct measurement research and statistical analyses to inform the development of standards for technologies and processes that contribute to more secure, fair, and accessible elections