Senators supportive of the Secure Elections Act, a bipartisan bill to protect political contests from cyberattacks, said lessons learned from next month’s midterms could make their way into a revised version in the works. Sen. Roy Blunt, Missouri Republican, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota Democrat, addressed efforts to rekindle the stalled Secure Elections Act during an event held Wednesday by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission in Washington, D.C. The bill will not be passed prior to the Nov. 6 midterms, according to both Mr. Blunt and Ms. Klobuchar’s co-sponsor, Sen. James Lankford, Oklahoma Republican, meaning states are missing out on millions of dollars that would have otherwise been allocated toward upgrading and securing voting and election systems, neglecting a major vulnerability raised by Russian hackers meddling in the 2016 race.
“We are not going to get anything in law between now and Election Day, which probably makes it even more important that we immediately look back at this election and say, ‘Okay, what happened that should have happened? What happened that shouldn’t have happened? What kind of deference was given to people who have been elected to do these jobs, what kind of security and clearance and immediate access to information was given to people who do these jobs, and I can guarantee you that I will be very committed to doing that,” said Mr. Blunt.
“Obviously 2018 is going to inform us as we go into the 2020 election,” Ms. Klobuchar said later during the event.
Introduced in the wake of the 2016 race, the Secure Election Act would “streamline cybersecurity information-sharing between federal intelligence entities and state election agencies, provide security clearances to state election officials and require adequate post-election auditing procedures so each election can be double-checked and verified,” according to Mr. Lankford’s office.
Full Article: Senators say midterms will inspire revived version of stalled election security bill – Washington Times.