[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 167 (Tuesday, October 22, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5935-S5937]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           Election Security

  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to urge the 
Senate to take action on election security legislation immediately.
  It has been 1,005 days since Russia attacked our elections in 2016, 
and we have yet to pass any kind of comprehensive election security 
reform. The next major elections are just 378 days away, so the clock 
is ticking. We must take action now to secure our elections from 
foreign threats.
  Let's review what happened.
  In 2016, Russia invaded our democracy. They didn't use bombs, jets, 
or tanks. Instead, they spent years planning a cyber mission to 
undermine the foundation of our democratic system. This mission has 
been called ``sweeping'' and ``systematic'' by many, including Special 
Counsel Mueller. Our military and intelligence officials from both 
Democratic and Republican administrations, as well as Special Counsel 
Mueller, made clear and confirmed over and over again that Russia 
launched sophisticated and targeted cyber attacks that were authorized 
by President Putin. This includes former Director Coats, President 
Trump's former intelligence head; Director Wray, the head of the FBI; 
and the head of Homeland Security. One by one, officials in the Trump 
administration have confirmed that this happened.
  What exactly did Russia do? They conducted research and 
reconnaissance against election networks in every single State. We used 
to think it was just 21 States, but this year, the FBI and the 
Department of Homeland Security under the Trump administration issued a 
report that confirmed that all 50 States were targeted.
  Russia was successful in hacking into databases in Illinois. The 
Chicago board of elections reported that names, addresses, birth dates, 
and other sensitive information on thousands of registered voters were 
exposed. Russia launched cyber attacks against U.S. companies that made 
the software we use to vote, and they tried to hack into the email of 
local officials who have elections in their purview.
  Investigations are ongoing, but we know Russia hacked into election 
systems in the Presiding Officer's home

[[Page S5936]]

State of Florida. Senator Rubio has publicly confirmed that Russian 
hackers not only accessed voting systems in Florida but were in a 
position to change voter rolls.
  These are just the attacks on our election infrastructure.
  So we should look at it this way: No. 1, they tried to get into the 
infrastructure. No. 2, we know they spread propaganda about things. One 
of the main ways they did that was through social media. This month, 
the Senate Intelligence Committee released a bipartisan report 
detailing Russia's widespread social media campaign to spread 
disinformation and divide our country. Remember, you have hacking into 
things at the local level and at the State levels, and then you have 
this disinformation campaign. These are two things with the same 
intent--to interfere in our democracy.
  Think about what I just described. A foreign country attacked our 
democracy in multiple ways. Our military leaders and law enforcement 
officials all say that Russia hasn't paid a sufficient price for the 
attack, so they are now ``emboldened,'' in the words of former Director 
Dan Coats--a former Republican Senator--in continuing efforts to 
undermine our political system.
  Congress hasn't passed a law--aside from providing election equipment 
funding with no strings attached--to address the problem. This isn't 
just wrong; this is legislative malpractice. We have a common set of 
facts about what happened. Now we need commonsense solutions to make 
sure it doesn't happen again.
  This week, a number of us are coming to the floor to urge the 
Republican leader to bring election security legislation to a vote. 
That must happen, but much more must happen as well.
  Today, I am going to focus on the need to improve transparency and 
accountability for online platforms like Facebook and Twitter, but 
before I turn to that, I would like to take a moment to describe why it 
is imperative that we update our election infrastructure.
  Right now, the majority of States rely on electronic voting systems 
that are at least 10 years old. In 2020, voters in eight States will 
cast their ballots on machines with no paper trail, so there will be no 
reliable record to go back and audit the election results. So if 
something goes wrong, if they hack in, there will be no paper ballots 
to back up what actually happened. Problems for that State or that 
county? Yes. Well, how about problems for our national Presidential 
election?
  By the way, am I telling any secrets? No. Russia knows exactly which 
States and counties don't have backup paper ballots.
  Sixteen States have no statewide audit requirement to confirm the 
results of the election. These statistics are alarming because experts 
agree that paper ballots and audits are the baseline of what we need to 
secure our election system.
  FBI Director Wray recently testified in the Senate. I asked him 
whether he thinks having things like paper ballots makes sense in the 
event that Russia--or any other foreign country, for that matter--
decides to go at us again. He said, yes, that would be a good thing. 
Maybe we should think of listening to the head of the FBI and figure 
out what we can do to make this better. Even the President has 
expressed his support for paper ballots. But I think we need more than 
words; I think we need action. We need this body to say to those 
States: It is time to get your act together now and get those backup 
paper ballots.
  I have introduced multiple pieces of legislation--some of them 
bipartisan--that would secure our election by requiring paper ballots, 
mandating postelection audits, and modernizing our election 
infrastructure. One of those bills, the Secure Election Act, is 
cosponsored by my colleague Senator Lankford and also by the head of 
the Intelligence Committee, Senator Burr, and Senator Warner, the 
ranking member, as well as Senator Graham, the chair of the Judiciary 
Committee, and Senator Harris is also a cosponsor. In spite of all of 
these leaders being on this bill, it was blocked last year by Senator 
McConnell, who made calls, along with the White House general counsel, 
to Republican Senators asking them not to support the bill. This is 
wrong.
  I am glad that my colleagues Senators Wyden and Durbin will be coming 
to the floor this week urging the Senate to take up the bills, such as 
the bills I introduced, the SAFE Act and the Election Security Act, 
that would modernize our election infrastructure.
  Remember, Russia didn't just try to hack into our elections system; 
they also launched an extended and sophisticated information war 
designed to divide our country and destroy America's confidence in our 
political system. Russia also knew that our social media platforms 
would be easily exploited for that purpose.

  I am going to ask unanimous consent to pass this bill, which is a 
bipartisan bill that I lead along with Senator Graham, the Republican 
chair of the Judiciary Committee, and that is also cosponsored by 
Senator Warner, the ranking leader on the Intelligence Committee.
  Why are we doing this bill about the social media platforms? Well, 
the place where Russia was most successful in undermining our democracy 
was right there in front of you on your Facebook page. We know that 
some of the brightest minds in our country built remarkable platforms 
where people can share information, like Twitter, Google, and Facebook. 
Unfortunately, these platforms failed to build adequate protections 
against the bad guys, kind of like building a bank but not putting any 
locks on the doors, and our democracy is worse because of it.
  Our social media platforms are not well regulated. In fact, they are 
hardly regulated at all and are ripe for exploitation. Countries like 
Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China are taking advantage of that as we 
speak.
  The Senate Intelligence Committee, led by Chairman Burr and Vice 
Chairman Warner, recently released its second report on Russian 
interference in the 2016 election. This wasn't a partisan report. No 
one could call it that at all.
  The first report details attacks and threats to election 
infrastructure. This second report details the sophisticated 
disinformation campaign Russia used to pit Americans against each 
other, and the committee found that Russia's targeting of the 2016 U.S. 
Presidential election was ``part of a broader, sophisticated, and 
ongoing information warfare campaign designed to sow discord in 
American politics and society.'' The report notes that Russia conducted 
``a vastly more complex and strategic assault on the United States than 
was initially understood.''
  What did they do? They hired trolls. They hired buildings full of 
people to go online and pretend to be Americans and then submit things 
and buy things and buy ads that ended up on your Facebook pages and 
your Twitter feed. Russia specifically focused on hot-button issues and 
used falsified stories and memes to foster distrust of our democratic 
institutions. So maybe they would target a conservative person and put 
up a bunch of things that would make that person mad, but they were 
fake or maybe they would target a liberal person, and they would put up 
a bunch of ads about rallies and about things like that which were 
actually fake.
  They targeted African-Americans more than any other group through 
individual posts, location targeting, Facebook pages, Instagram 
accounts, and Twitter. Their internet research agency focused on 
stoking divisions around race.
  One of my best examples is an ad that they bought in rubles. Facebook 
let them buy it in rubles. It was an ad that we didn't even see until 
months after the election. It had an innocent woman's face on it. I 
know because she called our office later when it came out in Judiciary. 
She was just a woman. They found her face--an African-American woman--
and put it on the ad. The ad reads: Why wait in line on election day? 
You can text your vote for Hillary Clinton. They gave the text number. 
That is a lie. It is more than a lie. It is a crime. They are trying to 
suppress people's votes and make them not go vote, and instead, text to 
a fake number. That is a crime. People have gone to jail for simply 
jamming the lines on election day. That is what this is. It is a high-
tech version of a crime. No one was prosecuted because we didn't even 
know the ad existed that was targeting African-American Facebook pages 
in

[[Page S5937]]

swing States until way after the election. They could do the same thing 
on the conservative side of the aisle.
  That is why I am simply asking for some solution, because one time it 
is going to be one side, and the next time it will be the other. Why 
would the people in this Chamber let this go on? Why would we do that? 
We have sworn and taken an oath--an obligation--to stand up for our 
country. That is what this is about.
  It continues. Intelligence officials are once again sounding the 
alarm that adversaries are using social media to undermine the upcoming 
elections. Just yesterday, Facebook announced that it removed a network 
of Russian-backed accounts posing as locals weighing in on political 
issues in swing States. It never ends. Russia has a playbook, and they 
are using it to attack us. We have to stop them. How do we do that? 
Well, I have a very good solution. It is not the only solution. There 
are a lot of other bills we can do too.
  But this is called the Honest Ads Act, which I am leading with 
Senator Graham. I want to thank Senator Warner for all the work he did 
on this bill as well. The goal is simple: Bring our laws into the 21st 
century to ensure that voters know who is paying to influence our 
political system. Right now, the political ads that are sold on TV, 
radio, and newspapers are disclosed so that the public knows what they 
are. They are actually kept in an archive so campaigns and reporters 
can go over and see what they are. They can actually figure out what 
this ad is and why somebody was putting this ad against me. I believe 
in the competitiveness of our election system, and if you disclose 
things, then, you are going to get more information about what is wrong 
with those things.
  The ads also have to say who paid for them. That is why you see those 
little disclaimers at the bottom or you see elected officials or their 
challengers saying who paid for this ad: My name is this; I paid for 
this ad. That is what that is.
  Guess what. If those things go on radio, TV, or newspaper, you have 
to follow all those rules. If they end up on Facebook or Twitter or 
another large social media platform, there are no rules in play. Sure, 
a few of those companies right now are voluntarily disclosing it, but 
there are no actual rules in place about how it should be done.
  When I asked them why they wouldn't favor the bill, some of them have 
since changed their minds and do favor it, but when I asked at the 
beginning, they said they couldn't figure out what an issue of Federal 
legislative importance is. That is what the standard is. It is about 
candidate ads and the issue ads that you see on TV that bug you all the 
time. When asked about ads and why they couldn't do it, they said they 
couldn't figure out what that was. I said: Really? My radio station in 
Deep River Falls, MN, can figure it out. These are some of the biggest 
companies in the world. Please tell me you don't have the expertise to 
figure that out.
  That is why it is important that we pass this bill. It is about issue 
ads, and it is also about candidate ads. All it does is this. As we 
look at where the money is going to go in advertising, in the last 2016 
Presidential election, $1.4 billion was spent online on these kinds of 
ads. It is supposed to go to $3 billion or $4 billion in 2020, and 
there are no rules of the road. It is not only unfair, but it is 
criminal if this continues.
  It is so easy to do. This is something we could fix right away. This 
is why John McCain led this bill with me. When we introduced it, he 
said:

       I have long fought to increase transparency and end the 
     corrupting influence of special interests in political 
     campaigns, and I am confident the Honest Ads Act will 
     modernize existing law to safeguard the integrity of our 
     election system.

  This Congress, as I mentioned, Senator Graham took his place. It is 
time to get this done. There are many other bills that I will come back 
and discuss in the next few weeks that would help on foreign influence 
in our elections, but, today, I want to focus on this one because 
election security is national security, and it is well past time that 
we take action. The American people should expect nothing less from us. 
We should be able to get this done.


                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 1356

  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Rules 
and Administration be discharged from further consideration of S. 1356 
and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that 
the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to 
reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no 
intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senate majority whip.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, there are Members who object to this. They 
can't be here to object on their own behalf. I object on their behalf.
  I say to the Senator from Minnesota that, like her, I also want to do 
everything we can to ensure that our elections are fair and transparent 
in this country. I think there are a number of solutions, as she 
pointed out, that are out there. I think there is a lot of good work 
that is being done and can be done, hopefully, on a bipartisan basis. 
As a former chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, I have worked 
with the Senator from Minnesota on a number of issues where we have 
been able to fashion solutions that are bipartisan in nature. I suspect 
work on this will continue.
  As I mentioned, we have a couple of Members on our side who do have 
objections to the bill in its current form or the process of trying to 
do it this way. I do think there is a way in which we can come together 
and work toward solutions that will help do what I think all of us have 
as an objective, and that is to keep our election process in this 
country fair and transparent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Minnesota.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I appreciate the words from my colleague from South 
Dakota. I point out that the act is a bipartisan bill, with the other 
cosponsor being the Republican chair of the Judiciary Committee, and I 
think we should be focused on election security instead of protecting 
these social media companies. I think we should be protecting the 
American people.
  We need to be a united front. I appreciate his words, and I look 
forward to working with him to get this bill to the floor.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.