[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 28 (Tuesday, February 11, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Page S976]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 2238

  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I want to thank the vice chair of the 
Select Committee on Intelligence and pick up on his remarks.
  For my colleagues, I believe they have asked that I give my remarks 
before I offer my unanimous consent request, and that is what I will 
do.
  Mr. President, America is 266 days away from the 2020 elections, and 
Majority Leader McConnell has yet to take any concrete steps to protect 
our foreign elections from hacking or foreign interference. Thanks to 
this legislative blockade, the Senate has been totally derelict in its 
duty to stop foreign cyber attacks on our election.
  I want to give just one concrete example, having listened to my 
colleague from Tennessee. There is not one single nationwide, mandatory 
election cyber security standard on the books. That means there is not 
even a prohibition on voting machines having an open connection to the 
internet. Colleagues, that is the equivalent of stashing our ballots in 
the Kremlin. There is no such cyber security prohibition.
  The election security debacle of 2016 was 4 years ago, but still this 
body has refused to act. We know Russian hackers probed all 50 State 
election systems. They hacked at least one election vendor. Russians 
penetrated two Florida county election systems, according to Florida's 
Governor. That is just what we know about.
  Despite all the ways foreign hackers have already made it into our 
election infrastructure, the Congress has refused to arm State and 
county officials with the knowledge and funding they need to secure 
their systems.
  I will state what I tell my constituents at townhall meetings at 
home--and I have more of them scheduled this weekend--I believe, as of 
today, the 2020 election is going to make 2016 look like small 
potatoes. The list of threats and vulnerabilities ought to be a wake-up 
call--a wake-up call--for every Member of this Senate. There were the 
ES&S voting machines that for years came with preinstalled remote-
access software. There is the fact that Russia hacked an election 
vendor called VR Systems in the summer of 2016. VR Systems electronic 
poll books in North Carolina malfunctioned on election day that year, 
and one polling place had to shut down for hours. It was 2\1/2\ years 
before the Department of Homeland Security even investigated what had 
happened, and the government still has not adequately responded to 
questions I and Senator Klobuchar have asked about this.
  Right now, many election officials across the country are buying 
election systems that they believe in good faith are high tech, but 
they are in fact vulnerable to hacking and are outdated the moment they 
come out of the box. There is the alarming trend of states using mobile 
voting apps, like Voatz, that haven't been vetted by top security 
experts.
  This is the reason why so many cyber security experts have been 
sounding the alarms for years, warning that putting computers between a 
voter and their ballots is a prescription for disaster. What happens 
when a ``glitch'' changes a candidate's vote totals by just 2 percent 
or 5 percent instead of 50 percent? What happens when a glitch shuts 
down machines in some precincts and not others, disenfranchising voters 
and skewing election results?
  Five States still exclusively use hackable, paperless voting 
machines, and nine other States still use paperless machines in some 
counties.
  These are serious problems, but there are some clear solutions. I 
proposed a bill called the PAVE Act, which has three key priorities 
that are universally supported by people who are knowledgeable in the 
election security field: paper ballots, routine post-election risk-
limiting audits, and mandatory Federal cyber security standards for 
election systems.
  Last year, the House passed a major election security bill called the 
SAFE Act, which included most of the PAVE Act. Senator Klobuchar and I, 
on behalf of colleagues on this side of the aisle, introduced the 
Senate version of the SAFE Act. The SAFE Act has all three key elements 
recommended by our Nation's top cyber security experts--paper ballots, 
security standards, and postelection audits--as well as the funding 
necessary to make sure States can live up to the new standards.
  The SAFE Act, in my view, represents the most comprehensive 
commonsense defense against foreign election hacking. I strongly urge 
my colleagues to reconsider their opposition to this vitally important 
legislation.
  Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent 
that the Rules and Administration Committee be discharged from further 
consideration of S. 2238, the SAFE Act; that the Senate proceed to its 
immediate consideration; that the bill be considered read a third time 
and passed; and that 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 Senator from Tennessee.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. WYDEN. Just to give a brief response, I think it is unfortunate 
that my colleague is not even willing to engage in this discussion with 
respect to this.
  I just want my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to think 
about their claims. They are saying, for example, that, well, they are 
sympathetic to the idea that there should be more money for election 
officials. The recent appropriations funding doesn't even have a 
requirement that it be spent on election security. States can buy brand 
new, insecure paperless voting machines that are pretty much useless 
when they come out of the box. They can even use the money to buy 
office chairs or a water cooler for the election office.
  Again, I come back, and I hope my colleague from Tennessee will 
reflect on this because she is somebody who has spent a lot of time on 
technology issues.
  The idea that this Senate is willing to say ``You know, we are not 
even going to do something. We are not even going to act'' when you can 
have voting machines with an open connection to the internet--it is 
just like stashing our ballots in the Kremlin. Something really is out 
of whack, and we ought to be coming together and passing the SAFE Act. 
We at least ought to be talking about it. What we have is a specific, 
documented case for an important piece of legislation, and the majority 
just says: That is the way it is. We are happy to say that you can have 
voting machines with an open connection to the internet. We are not 
even going to talk about it.
  I think it is very unfortunate.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.