[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 130 (Wednesday, July 31, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5218-S5220]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Election Security
Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, over the past several weeks, we have seen
numerous attempts by our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to
take a serious issue and, frankly, I think, turn it into a political
football. It is an issue on which the Presiding Officer and I have
spent a lot of time looking at what we need to do, in our having served
on the Committee on Intelligence and, in my case, on the Committee on
Rules and Administration, to be sure that people have the maximum
confidence that what happens on election day is exactly reflected in
the results.
Our friends came to the floor last week and sought unanimous consent
to make sweeping changes to the election laws of the country. Then they
somehow suggested there was a conspiracy that anybody would say no to
that. Unanimous consent means exactly that. It is what we do when we
name a post office. It is what we do when we make decisions that are
unanimously agreed to. It is usually all it takes to get that issue
settled. It is not how we shape the laws that are at the heart of our
democracy. It is also not what we do, in my opinion, when we try to
make a point about that. In fact, one of the bills on which they sought
unanimous consent had passed the House. It had received exactly one
Republican vote in the House. So, clearly, it was not unanimously
consented to over there and would not be unanimously consented to here.
This is about press releases, not policy. In fact, today, the
President called for us to pass voter ID laws that would require voter
ID in every State and a law that would have a paper trail in every
State. Right now, I suppose, if I were to draft that bill and call for
unanimous consent under the same standard, I should expect my friends
on the other side to say: Oh, that is something that others say would
help elections, so I should just be for that and be for that
immediately. Of course, that would not be the case.
These attempts have all been brought to the floor on the basis of
saving democracy--that this is what we need to do to save our
elections. This is in the name of election security, but it is really
not what it is about at all. Three of the bills were about campaign
committees, which are managed by lots of laws and may need to be
managed by more, but how you run a campaign committee is not how you
secure what happens at the voting place on election day.
One of the proposals was for the Federal Government to secure the
personal devices of Members of Congress and their employees. As the
Presiding Officer and I know, one of the things we do on the Committee
on Intelligence is to put a Fitbit, like this one, on the shelf before
we go into a meeting. If you have a phone like this one, you put it on
a shelf before you go into a meeting.
This law would say that the Federal Government should secure those
personal devices of mine so there would be absolute security so that if
they were to interact with a Federal system, there would be no damage
done to that system. I guess it would also mean that if one of my
children were to call me on his personal device, whether he lives at
home or not--and I would, of course, take that call immediately--he
would then have gotten into my personal device. Would the Federal
Government need to secure that as well?
Even if it were appropriate for the Federal Government to do that for
Members and their extended immediate networks, I am not sure it is
possible.
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I am certainly sure that it has nothing to do with election security.
It might have something to do with the security of our system here in
the Senate. Frankly, I think it might make it less secure, which is why
I have chosen not to bring that bill up before our committee until I
know more about it. I think it might make it less secure if everybody,
without hesitation, thinks, well, somebody has looked at this personal
device of mine and has secured it, so I can go into any of the secure
systems in the Senate that I want to with this device and not have any
sense that I might endanger that Senate system.
This doesn't protect the elections. There have been numerous UC
attempts we have seen on plenty of other bills that have claimed to
secure elections. One included a provision that would take away the
authority of the States to determine their own processes for voter
registration. I am not for that. I also think it is hard to make the
case that it would secure elections.
In case you think it would, another one was to require every State to
have online voter registration. I am pretty sure that this would make
elections less secure.
We have talked about all of the infiltration of bad information out
there on the internet, and one of these provisions to secure elections
would require States to have online registration.
One was for there to be automatic voter registration, and another was
for there to be same-day registration.
In the nonurban part of our State of Missouri, we didn't have voter
registration in all elections until 1975 or so. The view was, well, in
small towns and school district elections and all, they are going to
know everybody, so they really don't need to have registration. Yet,
finally, it occurred to somebody that one might just think one knows
five people, and the bond issue might be decided by five people, so we
would have voter registration. In fact, not only would we have it, but
we would have it enough in advance that anybody could look at those
voter rolls 28 days in advance and see if there were any question as to
whether one were registered or not.
Other States have decided to have same-day registration, but one of
these bills that would secure our elections would allow anybody to
register to vote that day who would walk up to vote. If you think that
works in your State, I am not really arguing you shouldn't do it,
because if that is what the voters of that State believe to be the
case, maybe it does. I am pretty sure it wouldn't work in every State.
In revisiting that online voter registration again, I am sure that
doesn't secure elections.
There was one proposal that was rejected in these bills to secure
elections, that being, for every $1 contributed at a certain level,
there would be $6 given to that campaign by the Federal Government.
That is one of the secure election things that was rejected, that
wasn't accepted by unanimous consent.
At this point, it does seem to me, if you are not willing to accept
all of these things--there was sort of this ``hair on fire'' moment--or
are not willing to accept anything somebody else says will secure
elections, then somehow you are undermining the elections system. Yet
we really undermine the system when we say this kind of thing helps it.
Frankly, I have been watching this for a while, and that list of things
I gave you has been on every Democratic wish list for about 20 years of
what would be of advantage to them in the elections. Never before have
they purported that these things have made elections more secure. They
have just said it was a better system and more fair. It was obvious to
them it would help them, and it was obvious to us it would help them.
We haven't done it, and we are probably not going to do it right now.
There are people in this building who simply will not accept the fact
that there is not a Federal solution to every problem. Sometimes if
there is a Federal solution, it is not the best solution. Frankly, I
think the diversity of the election system that we have is one of the
strengths of the system. I may get back to that later, but that is what
President Obama said in October of 2016. In fact, he said that we
didn't have a Federal structure and that it made it really more
difficult to impact our elections than if we had.
I believe everybody here clearly knows that State and local officials
faced a significant threat from the Russians, particularly in 2016,
that they had not faced before. One could probably add that the
Russians, the Chinese, the North Koreans, and the Iranians could do
very disruptive things for not much money. There is no question that
the Russians affected our elections, but they have been trying to
impact elections in Eastern and Western Europe for well over a decade.
Why this would be a surprise to us is shocking to me and why, in 2016,
we acted like we were totally flatfooted that, oh, the Russians would
actually interfere with the elections just because they interfered in
elections in a couple handful of countries in the previous decade. The
world is pretty small when you get to that internet world we live in
now.
A critical infrastructure declaration came from the Obama
administration in October whereby, frankly, it terrified most State
election officials that, suddenly, the Federal Government, with about 2
weeks left before the election, was going to Federalize a system that
they were personally responsible for.
As for the Intelligence Committee that started this process--the
Presiding Officer and I were both on it, and I am still on it--it
released some key findings about what the Russians had done. The
committee found that the Russians had worked hard to find the seams
between which the Federal Government could be helpful to State and
local governments. They found that the FBI's and Department of Homeland
Security's warnings to local officials came way too late in the process
and were not well thought out. It scared the wrong people and confused
more people when the FBI and the DHS did what they did. While there is
no question that both of those agencies have redoubled their efforts to
build trust with the States and deploy resources to help secure
elections, we have to remain vigilant to see they continue to do that.
Even when the Presiding Officer and I worked on a bill together last
year, the local officials continued to have some problems with it. I
know I said at the time that I had believed we had been doing
everything this bill would do. I am not sure we would still be doing it
10 years from now, so we need to memorialize that. I haven't
significantly changed my view on that, but I haven't changed my view,
more importantly, that we are doing what we need to do now.
Congress needs to be vigilant. We have to insist that State and local
officials have the clearance levels they need. Frankly, let me say this
too. On that topic, I am not sure you can legislate that. I am not sure
you can legislate ``here is what you have to be willing to tell State
and local officials.'' I am not sure you can ever put that in writing,
but you can ask them what they are telling people. I talked to one of
our State election officials just last week.
I asked: How is this going?
He said: Well, everything we request seems to be one level above the
security clearance I have.
Too many of the things we ask meet that criteria. We are going to
have to insist that this not be the case. While this is not likely to
be solved by legislation, I think it can be solved by congressional
oversight and inquiry.
The Intelligence Committee also found that Russian activities demand
renewed attention to vulnerabilities in the U.S. voting infrastructure.
I certainly agree with that. We even said in that report we should
replace out-of-date machines with improved ways to vote and improved
cybersecurity. I think that is happening.
Election officials have been taking this threat very seriously. DHS,
the Department of Homeland Security, has reported that all 50 States
and more than 1,400 local jurisdictions have signed up for the cyber
threat information sharing program. We have had reports to the Senate
on that, and the Committee on Rules and Administration has had hearings
on that. The Committee on Intelligence has asked repeatedly about that.
The monitoring sensors that help to detect malicious activity have been
deployed to election infrastructure in most States.
Remember that, in 2016, we had a cyber defense, but we didn't have a
cyber offense. Early in the Trump administration, I remember people
being asked in an open hearing: Do you have
[[Page S5220]]
any direction now to be fighting out there--to have a cyber offense?
That was about 5 months into the Trump administration.
The person said: No.
You would think that, somehow, the old cyber offense had been turned
off. In fact, there had been no cyber offense.
Sometime in 2017, the cyber fighters were given what they needed, and
they are out there helping. They are fighting back too. We had a report
on that just recently of which all of the Senators are aware.
One of the chief State election officials in terms of that cyber war
said that in their system there are about 100,000 attempts every day to
scam the voter registration system and see if you could possibly get
in.
I don't know how many thousands of those might be from foreign
actors. I suspect a majority of them are from people who just say:
Let's see if I can get into the system. But we should assume all
100,000 are from somebody who wants to do something wrong, and I think
the States are getting the help they need to fight that back.
We have seen States use equipment that didn't have a backup so that
when the election was over, you could count something individually and
that the voter would have been able to look at and get their hands on
and recount. As a matter of fact, if you ask me, the best proof you can
have is a backup, a ballot that could be counted--a ballot where if I
vote in Missouri, my voting machine generates something that I look at
and then I put that in the ballot box and it is counted at the polling
place. But if it ever had to be counted again, if there was any
question about that precinct counter, they can go back and open that
ballot box and count them again.
On election day in 2016, and even in 2018, there were still four
States that didn't have that system anywhere in their States. There are
a couple of other States that have a partial system and four States
that didn't have it. Delaware has it in place for this year's election.
Georgia announced just last week that they had awarded a contract to
replace their equipment that will be in place for the 2020 elections
and have an auditable ballot trail. South Carolina made a similar
announcement last month. The fourth State, Louisiana, is working
through a contracting bidding process right now. Whether they are in
place by 2020 or not in Louisiana I don't know, but I know they will be
in as soon as they can reasonably be in and not confuse voters.
Congress has to continue to move States to do that. We need to look
and see what happened with the States that were given $380 million. In
2018, 49 States took the money immediately. One State, Minnesota, has
some glitch with their legislature so they don't have their money yet.
But of the $380 million that States have, they have only spent 25
percent of it. So there is still $285 million for which States have to
do the kinds of things that the Congress thinks States should be doing.
Now, there may be some States that have already spent all of their
money and need more. That is something that, in the appropriations
process, I am sure we will look at again, just like that $380 million
came through the appropriations process.
As I recall, the Presiding Officer was pretty involved in that
discussion at the time.
The Federal Government's role isn't to run elections for the State,
but it certainly has a place in trying to be a valued partner, ensuring
that the States have all the help they need.
In fact, I believe that a larger Federal role requiring a one-size-
fits-all approach to the election would be a big mistake. I am not for
federalizing the elections.
I spent 20 years as an elections official, either as the individual
responsible for elections in the third-most populous county in our
State or the chief elections official as the secretary of State. In 20
years of doing this, I guarantee you that the person on the ground,
generally elected by the voters for whom he or she is trying to secure
the election that day, is intensely interested in that election going
well and people's having confidence in it.
There is very little kicking the buck up to some Federal official in
a faraway place and saying: Well, we can't prepare for that because we
haven't been told we could prepare for that.
Public confidence in elections is fundamental. It is the central
thread in the fabric of democracy. Elected officials take it seriously
when they are elected to do this job or supervise this job, just like
appointed officials and boards of elections or election commissioners
do.
That system would not be improved if it was directed from Washington,
DC, in a one-size-fits-all world.
These public servants undertake an important job, and they understand
it is an important job. We need to support them. We are supporting
them.
We need to have oversight. There may be a time when that oversight
has produced a system that is so finely honed that we are ready to make
it permanent, but every time you put something in law permanently, you
reduce a lot of your flexibility to insist that something be done
differently that needs to be done right now.
Both the Intel Committee report--and both Senator Warner and Senator
Burr have done a good job at keeping our committee on a bipartisan,
nonpartisan track in this report--and former FBI Director Mueller
focused on the insidious efforts to confuse voters. This is a much
bigger question than what we could do at the government level about
elections security.
Let's not confuse that certain fight about bad information that is
out there with a fight about whether our elections are secure and what
happens on election day.
Frankly, much more attention on what we can do about information is
out there. Put people on alert. You know, sometimes even your political
opponent says things that aren't true, and they don't have to be
Russian to do that. People need to be on alert about information that
is out there, but they also don't need to be scared to death that
somehow we are not taking seriously the important moment of democracy
when people decide.
I believe we are doing that. I am committed to it. I believe the
Senate is committed to it. I think this effort to make everything that
might advantage one side on an election security issue is something
that people need to be thoughtful about, and it needs to stop.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.