Merrill firm on vote process protection

While President Donald Trump appears to be somewhat muddled in his understanding of election meddling by Russia, it’s reassuring that some federal — and Connecticut — officials have fully accepted the facts as presented by intelligence agencies and are working to protect the electoral system, the foundation of our democracy.

Connecticut Secretary of the State Denise Merrill, our chief election official, said she’s recently been told by leadership of the Department of Homeland Security that the threat from Russia is “ongoing and very real.”

Merrill has been consistent in her watchdog duties. She was among the audacious state officials — some 40 of them — who refused to bow to demands for information on state voters from the so-called Presidential Advisory Committee on Election Integrity.

Trump formed the committee based on the delusional canard that “millions” of people voted illegally in the 2016 presidential election.

Of those 40 officials — Republican and Democrat — we wrote last January, “They were right to excuse themselves from a Banana Republic pageant dressed up with the presidential seal and bestowed with a resplendent title.”

The president disbanded the commission in January.

Merrill was among state elections officials who met with Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in Philadelphia last weekend.

Nielsen said Russia was not targeting the 2018 election with the same “scale or scope” of its effort in 2016.

Merrill put out a statement this week after watching the president’s press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin. It was an uncomfortable display, during which, among other things, the president tangoed around a question of whether he believed Putin or U.S. intelligence agencies on the topic of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

“On Friday, I was told by the leadership of the Department of Homeland Security that the threat of further Russian attacks on our election infrastructure was ongoing and very real,” she said.

The air, of course, is thick with the word “collusion” and the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into the possibility of that between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives. That investigation will rise or fall on its own merits. Trump has denied any collusion.

Interference by Russia is another matter. The Mueller probe is, so far, inconclusive on the topic of collusion.

Investigations by U.S. intelligence agencies and their findings regarding the 2016 election, however, are not inconclusive.

Though no one has found that any individual votes or tallies were changed, it is irrefutable that America’s arguably most formidable adversary was sticking its fingers in the process. That is intolerable.

While the president may continue to harbor doubts about whether his colleague Vladimir would ever do such a thing, we’ll reiterate that it’s good to know that many senior Washington officials, and Merrill, seem to know the score and are working to keep our system safe.

“On Friday, I was told by the leadership of the Department of Homeland Security that the threat of further Russian attacks on our election infrastructure was ongoing and very real,” she said.