FreedomWorks has advocated a more limited federal footprint, but Mr. Savickas said that “there is a role for Congress” to provide money for states to transition to paper ballot backups and to conduct “risk-limiting audits” after elections.
Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, continues to push his Defending Elections From Threats by Establishing Redlines Act, written with Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, that would impose mandatory sanctions on anyone who attacks an American election. Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Cory Gardner of Colorado, both Republicans, together with a handful of Democrats, are pressing for crippling new sanctions on Russia to increase the penalty for its past aggression.
None of that appears to be moving.
Nor does the Secure Elections Act, written by Senators James Lankford, Republican of Oklahoma, and Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, which codifies cyberinformation-sharing initiatives between federal intelligence services and state election officials, speeds up the process of granting state officials security clearances and provides incentives for states to adopt the use of paper ballots. The coalition behind it is fraying in the face of a reluctant White House and a balking Mr. McConnell.
“Many of the things we have in the Secure Elections Act, D.H.S. is already doing,” Mr. Lankford said in an interview, referring to the Department of Homeland Security. “We are trying to codify it, to say we can’t forget. We get to 2022, 2024, 2026 — no one can become complacent and think the Russians or the North Koreans or the Chinese are not going to try to engage in these kind of activities.”
The bill was abruptly pulled before a committee vote last year, and now Republicans and Democrats are struggling to agree to changes that Mr. Lankford has advanced to try to win White House support. Ms. Klobuchar is insistent that it take steps to either mandate or incentivize postelection audits and include additional money for states to buy new software and hardware.
“We are negotiating, but I am not going to agree to a significantly weakened bill,” Ms. Klobuchar said in an interview.
Lawmakers in both parties increasingly believe the best, albeit more limited, hope to get around Mr. McConnell could come through Congress’s annual appropriations process, where Democrats have more leverage and deals are more easily cut to satisfy both parties.
from Best News Viral http://bit.ly/2MzIiEY
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