On Thursday, June 27, 2019, the United States House of Representatives passed H.R. 2722, an election security bill aimed at strengthening the nation’s election system.  Introduced by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D. Calif.), the Securing America’s Federal Elections (SAFE) Act authorizes $600 million to update voting equipment to comply with new standards.

• The SAFE requirements mandate that voting machines be manufactured in the United States, stay disconnected from the Internet, and produce paper records; 
• The SAFE bill provides an additional $175 million biannual appropriation for “sustainment” funds for maintain election infrastructure and
• a $5 million grant program administered by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to research accessible paper ballot verification methods. [The Hill]

The bill passed the House floor in a near party-line vote 225 to 184; Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.) was the only Republican to vote for the bill. [Washington Post] In a party conference before the vote, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) described the bill as an effort to “further strengthen the defense of our democracy.” At the same conference, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said, “We’re standing with our House colleagues today—we’re standing with the American people today, to protect the integrity of our elections.” Much of the Democratic support stems from the Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report finding foreign political influence in the 2016 presidential election.

Though legislators from both parties have acknowledged the need for increased election security, the parties disagree how to achieve this goal. While congressional Democrats view the bill as a safeguard against foreign interference, their Republican counterparts view the bill as a form of federal encroachment into an area (overseeing elections) traditionally regulated by the states. Rep. Rodney Davis (R.-Ill.), the ranking Republican of the House Administration Committee, stated that the bill “focuses on forcing states to restructure their election systems through federal mandates and ignores states’ rights to choose the election system that best fits their unique needs.” [The Roll Call]

The bill faces steep opposition in the Senate. On Thursday morning, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) deemed the bill a “nonstarter.” Citing Congress’s previous grant of $380 million to states for election security, McConnell believes additional funding unnecessary, as reported by the New York Times. On Tuesday, June 25, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) tried to force a vote on a measure that would require backup paper ballots and authorize $1 billion in grants for states to improve election protection until Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) blocked the move. [The Hill]  In the week prior, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R.-Tenn.) similarly blocked Sen. Mark Warner’s (D-Va.) attempt to bring forth a bill requiring campaigns to report to the Federal Election Commission any foreign nationals who make donations or provide election assistance. [The Hill]

Criticizing Republican opposition to the bill, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) emphasized how Democrats would spend the upcoming July 4th holiday “fanning out all across the country” to advocate for election security measures. “We’re going to have a simple message: pass legislation with provisions of the SAFE Act, and tell Mitch McConnell that the future of our democracy is too important for him to stand in its way,” Sen. Wyden expressed. [The Roll Call]  Speaker Pelosi announced that election security officials would brief Congress on July 10 in an effort to further increase pressure on Leader McConnell. [The Hill]

In the Mueller Report, Special Counsel Robert Mueller III concluded that the “Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion.” [Mueller Report link] While exposing the details of these Russian efforts, the Mueller Report identified one state in particular—Florida—as a key target of the Russian hackers (at p. 51). In Volume I of the Mueller Report, the Special Counsel’s Office indicated that the FBI believed the Russian government had gained access to voting data possessed by “at least one Florida county government.” In recent days, however, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and other top officials learned in a series of confidential briefings that the FBI and Department of Homeland Security believe two Florida counties were hacked prior to the 2016 election.

According to the Mueller Report, a Russian intelligence service, known as GRU, sent spearphishing emails to over 120 email accounts used by Florida county officials responsible for administering the 2016 U.S. election. The spearphishing emails contained an attached document coded with malicious software (commonly referred to as a Trojan) that permitted the GRU to access the infected computer. In spite of the breaches, the FBI have not found any evidence that there was any manipulation of voter data, vote counts, or election results in 2016.

Following the confidential briefings, a bipartisan choir of both officials and constituents demanded the identity of the counties that fell victim to Russian interference. In response, Gov. DeSantis acknowledged that he was required to accept the terms a non-disclosure agreement prior to being briefed by the FBI. The terms of the NDA reportedly prohibit DeSantis from confirming or repeating the confidential information to unauthorized individuals. Since publicizing this agreement, DeSantis has received significant criticism from an array of officials who believe the Governor should have pushed back at the request to agree to the NDA. However, the terms of a 2003 executive order require the FBI to obtain an NDA before people without security clearances, such as DeSantis and his staff, are briefed on sensitive or classified information.

Many advocates of government transparency have questioned DeSantis’s legal standing to sign an NDA on the matter due to the broad nature of Florida’s public record laws. Barbara Petersen, president of the First Amendment Foundation, said that a long line of past court rulings makes it clear that Florida officials cannot agree to keep a document confidential if it is shared with them, even if the official does not retain possession of the documents. However, Petersen concedes that an NDA would may be appropriate to protect confidential information given to DeSantis verbally.

With the next election approaching quickly, many Floridians are less worried about what happened in 2016 and more worried about how to prevent this meddling in the 2020 elections. Last year, the Florida Department of State distributed more than $14.5 million in cybersecurity grants for federal elections to the state’s Supervisors of Elections. In addition, the Supervisors of Elections were given $1.9 million dollars in state funding to purchase and install Albert network monitoring sensors. These sensors are used by election organizations to detect cyber threats and quickly alert officials when data may be at risk. Albert sensors were developed as a supplemental form of the DHS’s Einstein project, which focuses on detecting and blocking cyberattacks within federal agencies.

[Sources: Politico, Palm Beach Post, My Sun Coast, GovTech.com, Orlando Sentinel, Learn.cisecurity.org]

April 18, 2019 - The Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election by Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller, III was released, in redacted form, to the public today.  The Report concludes: "The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion."

"As set forth in detail in this report, the Special Counsel's investigation established that Russia interfere~ in the 2016 presidential election principally through two operations. First, a Russian entity carried out a social media campaign that favored presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and disparaged presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Second, a Russian intelligence service conducted computer-intrusion operations against entities, employees, and volunteers working on the Clinton Campaign and then released stolen documents. The investigation also identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign. Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."

Download the Mueller Report here