Partisan feud

Partisan feud derails election security bill

By ERIC GELLER and MARTIN MATISHAK

A bipartisan bill meant to secure future U.S. elections against foreign meddling suffered a major setback Wednesday after Republicans pulled support from the measure.

A dispute over the Secure Elections Act boiled down to whether Congress should compel more states to use paper-based audits — a safeguard that election integrity advocates say would help ensure vote tallies weren't tampered with or altered.

The delay by the Senate Rules Committee angered Senate Democrats who said the bill is critically important for states to have the necessary safeguards in place to protect elections from foreign interference.

"For everyone else who delayed this action today, I hope that you will listen to the clarion cry of our intelligence community and continue to work with us and reschedule the markup and pass the bill into law," said Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), the top ranking member on the Rules Committee.

“With only 76 days before the election, with cyberattacks from Russia and other countries and criminal enterprises being revealed every day, with no national requirement for critical security protocols such as audits or backup paper ballots for our nation’s election infrastructure, we must take action before the next election," she said.

A previous version of the legislation required paper-based audits if states received federal money, but the version released last week by Senate Rules Chairman Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) — himself a former Missouri secretary of state — did not have that requirement.

A Senate aide told POLITICO that the Rules Committee postponed the markup after hearing from state election officials who didn’t want stringent audit requirements. Their concerns jeopardized Republican support for the bill.

“In recent days, individual Secretaries of State, including the Vermont Secretary of State, who currently serves as president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, have expressed concerns about certain provisions in the Secure Elections Act,” said the aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations.

“In order for a truly bipartisan election security bill to reach the floor, additional majority support is necessary,” the aide said.

The delay comes as election security issues are back in the news. On Tuesday, Microsoft released a major report saying that it detected new Russian cyberattacks against the Senate and Republican think tanks. This afternoon, senior national security officials are scheduled to brief senators on election security.

That closed-door briefing “is likely to be helpful as the committee discusses future policy responses," the Senate aide said.

The postponement follows months of senior Republican and Democrat maneuvering to build up support for the bill, which had garnered the backing from enough lawmakers that it was widely considered to be the best chance for Congress to take action in assisting states in the wake of the Russian-linked hacks and disinformation campaigns that roiled the 2016 presidential race.

Klobuchar noted that all of the panel's Democrats were ready to vote for the bill and called it "irresponsible" not to pass the legislation before the midterms.

She said in a statement that Blunt and the bill's coauthor, Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), attempted to salvage the votes needed to pass the measure. "In the end we had every single Democrat on the committee committed to vote for the bill."

"Congressional inaction is unacceptable," Lankford said.

"This problem has been at the forefront of many Americans’ minds as more news has come to light about the extent of the threats we face," he added.

The bipartisan legislation "will help states take necessary steps to further prepare our election infrastructure for the possibility of interference from not just Russia, but other possible adversaries like Iran or North Korea or a hacktivist group," according to Lankford.

The Rules Committee announcement did not say when the rescheduled markup would take place.