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Credit to Author: Matt Laslo| Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2019 01:32:47 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n On the eve <\/span>of former special counsel Robert Mueller\u2019s much anticipated testimony<\/a> in the House of Representatives, Senate Democrats are trying to refocus the nation\u2019s atten\u00adtion on Russian interference in US elections. Interference that they predict, and the intelligence community agrees, will only increase in 2020.<\/p>\n "The Russians are absolutely intent on trying to interfere with our elections through foreign influence,\u201d FBI director Christopher Wray testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.<\/p>\n There are a number of bipartisan efforts to protect the nation\u2019s electoral process: The Honest Ads Act, cosponsored by Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) and Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), is aimed at keeping foreign actors from buying social media ads, among other things. The Duty to Report Act would \u201cimpose a legal duty on federal campaigns, candidates, and PACs to report offers of assistance from foreign nationals.\u201d But one high hurdle to enacting those policies remains: Republican leadership.<\/p>\n \u201cThe only people that are stopping these kinds of common-sense measures from becoming law of the land are \u2026 [Senate majority leader] McConnell and President Trump,\u201d said Senator Mark Warner (D-Virginia), who serves as vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, at a press conference at the Capitol on Tuesday.<\/p>\n Warner and other Democrats argue that the holes in the nation\u2019s electoral system are so obvious that proponents already have the votes to pass a myriad of bipartisan bills.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re talking about low-hanging fruit that, if it came to the floor of the Senate, they would pass with close to 80-plus votes,\u201d Warner said, claiming that these measures could easily bypass a presidential veto.<\/p>\n Still, Republican leaders dismiss these efforts as unneces\u00adsary, and they point to the last federal election as their case in point. \u201cMost of our members, at least, believe that with the additional resources given to the states and the way the states improved their game in 2018 that we\u2019re on the right track,\u201d Senate majority whip John Thune told WIRED.<\/p>\n Congress set aside $380 million last year for states to beef up election security through the Help America Vote Act, but experts say more federal funding is needed<\/a>. The nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice released a report<\/a> just last week arguing that \u201ceven after these funds have been spent, many election security needs will remain unmet at the state and local level.\u201d<\/p>\n Thune, speaking on behalf of McConnell and other leaders, said the GOP leadership\u2019s reticence stems from fears that Democrats are trying to de-federalize local elections.<\/p>\n \u201cThey want to nationalize our election process, and I think most Republicans think a decentralized process is less likely to be gamed than if we had a nationalized system that does it,\u201d Thune said. \u201cThe states by and large\u2014with few exceptions\u2014they do a really good job. They\u2019ve invested, I think, heavily in firewalls and they worked effectively in 2018, and we hope that will be true in 2020.\u201d<\/p>\n No Democrat currently in office is arguing to nationalize elections. Senate Democrats are, however, calling for more resources from Washington, along with more stringent rules governing federal elections. Their legislative proposals include the Protecting American Votes and Elections Act<\/a>, which no Republican has yet sponsored. Among other things, the bill would require states to use voting machines with paper ballots, rather than digital-only systems; paper ballots serve as a backup and can be audited in the event of suspected interference or cyberattack.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no reason we shouldn\u2019t be able to advance that bill,\u201d said Senator Klobuchar. \u201cThat\u2019s really disturbing that we\u2019re not getting that done.\u201d<\/p>\n These senators, along with the bipartisan partners who have signed on to many of their proposals, fear the country hasn\u2019t learned the right lessons from 2016. But they differ on what exactly the biggest threats are.<\/p>\n Senator Warner is also worried about outside actors intervening, as was laid out in Mueller\u2019s report, through hacking into the personal information of campaign officials, attempting to penetrate election systems nationwide, and creating fake accounts intended to sow discord on social media, which intelligence officials also witnessed happening in the UK\u2019s Brexit vote and the last French presidential election.<\/p>\n But, technologically speaking, 2020 is light years away from 2016, and lawmakers see new potential tools and tactics to simply\u2014and at a bargain-basement price\u2014disrupt the American electoral system in the meantime.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe the single greatest new threat, from at least the social media standpoint, is the use of deepfakes,\u201d Warner said. \u201cIf seeing is believing, the ability for a foreign government\u2014for a foreign entity\u2014to manipulate the images of any of our political candidates to appear to say something they\u2019re not saying, is really, I think, one of the most chilling aspects.\u201d<\/p>\n