• Home
  • Independent Voter News
  • Quizzes
  • Election Dissection
  • Sections
  • Events
  • Directory
  • About Us
  • Glossary
  • Opinion
  • Campaign Finance
  • Redistricting
  • Civic Ed
  • Voting
  • Fact Check
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. Voting>
  3. voting>

Senate Republicans reluctant to consider election security measures

Geoff West
April 11, 2019

U.S. intelligence agencies agree on the importance of improving election security. But like with most other policy issues that could be on the table this year, politics is getting in the way of any solutions.

As the McClatchy DC Bureau reported, "partisanship has all but killed any chance that Congress will pass legislation to shore up election security before voters cast their ballots next year."

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has slammed the door on any vote on House Democrats' political overhaul legislation, which includes election security measures that would provide grant funding for states to upgrade voting equipment, train election officials on cybersecurity and conduct post-election audits.


McConnell's opposition to the House-passed bill, known as HR 1, has less to do with his aversion to election security, however, than his distaste for the bill's other proposals, such as new campaign finance restrictions.

And yet, Republican leadership appears to be lukewarm on a different Senate bill focused solely on election security — one that has bipartisan support.

The Secure Elections Act introduced last year aims to improve cybersecurity information-sharing between federal agencies and state election officials, offer election-security grants and provide security clearances to state election officials. The bill was authored by Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma and Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Kamala Harris of California.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Despite bipartisan backing, the legislation has hit a brick wall in the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, which has jurisdiction over election security legislation.

Rules Chairman Roy Blunt, a Republican from Missouri, said he has no plans to discuss the bill because McConnell is not inclined to bring up "even a GOP-led election bill to the floor for fear Democrats might try to amend it" with provisions plucked from HR 1.

"The House action on election legislation has actually made it even less likely that that bill could possibly be on the Senate floor," Blunt said. "Their [H.R. 1] bill was a combination of everything that Democrats have wanted to do over the past 20 years all put into one big bill. ... That bill's just not going to go to the floor. Neither is any other bill that opens the door to these issues. Leader gets to decide that and he has made it clear."

Related Articles Around the Web
  • House Democrats Introduce Anti-Corruption Bill HR1 As First Act ... ›
  • 10 things you might not know about HR 1 ›
  • Text - H.R.1 - 116th Congress (2019-2020): For the People Act of ... ›
  • The Crisis of Election Security - The New York Times ›
voting
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Follow
Contributors

The ‘great replacement theory’ is nonsense

Debilyn Molineaux

Caught in a draft

Lawrence Goldstone

Congress shows signs of bipartisanship with retirement benefits bill

Mario H. Lopez

Fair representation: More Black people needed in STEM today

Jennifer Stimpson

First instincts, second thoughts

Debilyn Molineaux

It’s time to build a global pro-democracy movement

Yordanos Eyoel
Hahrie Han
latest News

Elections require more consistent federal funding, per report

Reya Kumar
11h

Podcast: A new understanding of the right

Our Staff
19h

Supreme Court continues to chip away at campaign finance laws

David Meyers
17 May

Podcast: Depolarizing America

Our Staff
17 May

Inflation will hit health of low-income Americans hardest

Robert Pearl
17 May

Voters head to the polls in five states, with GOP nominating battles dominating headlines

David Meyers
16 May
Videos

Video: Helping loved ones divided by politics

Our Staff

Video: What happened in Virginia?

Our Staff

Video: Infrastructure past, present, and future

Our Staff

Video: Beyond the headlines SCOTUS 2021 - 2022

Our Staff

Video: Should we even have a debt limit

Our Staff

Video: #ListenFirstFriday Yap Politics

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: Did economists move the Democrats to the right?

Our Staff
02 May

Podcast: The future of depolarization

Our Staff
11 February

Podcast: Sore losers are bad for democracy

Our Staff
20 January

Deconstructed Podcast from IVN

Our Staff
08 November 2021
Recommended
North Carolina primary election workers

Elections require more consistent federal funding, per report

Podcast: A new understanding of the right

Podcast: A new understanding of the right

Leveraging big ideas
Memorial for victims of Buffalo shooting

The ‘great replacement theory’ is nonsense

Media
Sen. Ted Cruz and Judge Amy Coney Barrett

Supreme Court continues to chip away at campaign finance laws

Podcast: Depolarizing America

Podcast: Depolarizing America

Leadership
medical expenses

Inflation will hit health of low-income Americans hardest

Leveraging big ideas