Lankford: Election security bill isn’t dead
YUKON — U.S. Sen. James Lankford says election security legislation he has touted for months is not dead, despite delays by a Senate committee and mixed messages from the White House.
The Secure Elections Act, which was introduced by the Oklahoma City Republican late last year, appeared to be headed for passage this fall. It has attracted a bipartisan following as intelligence officials continue to warn of Russian attempts to hack America’s elections.
But last week, the Senate Rules Committee abruptly pulled the bill from consideration and a White House spokesperson suggested it was unnecessary because the Department of Homeland Security already “has all the statutory authority it needs to assist state and local officials” as they seek to ensure their elections are secure.
In remarks to a Yukon chamber luncheon Friday and to reporters after the event, Lankford said the bill still has the support of the Senate and president, blaming “misnomers” and an “inappropriate” comment from the White House for any confusion.
“We had a bipartisan majority that would support it through committee but there were a couple questions from some of the members and individuals that said, ‘Hey, I’ve got one thing I want to be able to look at.’ The decision was made to be able to pull it, try to work that out so we can have a unanimous majority on it, rather than just a bipartisan majority,” Lankford said.
“I’ve talked to several people in the White House. They are not opposing this bill. There has been an inappropriate word that came out saying they were in opposition to it. They’re not. Do they have some questions? Yes, they do, but they were already allowing it to be able to go through the Rules Committee markup and then they wanted to see some things change before it went to the floor, but they are not trying to stop this bill.”
Sen. Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican who chairs the Rules Committee, told the Springfield News-Leader that he supports the bill. When asked why he pulled the bill from committee consideration, Blunt cited the concerns of secretaries of state and said more support for the bill is needed before it can pass.
The Secure Elections Act would grant security clearances to a top election official in each state so they can track threats to their voting systems, would establish a channel of communication between Homeland Security and states, and would incentivize states to audit their elections. Lankford talks most often about the last provision, noting five states rely entirely on paperless machines and therefore cannot audit their elections.
Because states, not the federal government, oversee elections, the bill has prompted obvious questions about whether it goes too far in asserting federal control. It would allow states to receive federal grants for election infrastructure, but only if the states conduct paper audits of elections.
The White House spokesperson, Lindsay Walters, said last week that President Donald Trump cannot support a bill “that moves power or funding from the states to Washington” for the operation of elections. Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, a Republican critic of the bill, told reporters last week it would be “a big step” for the federal government to insert itself in elections by passing the Secure Elections Act.
Lankford said in a speech on the Senate floor that states can’t be expected to protect against foreign attacks on their election systems. Protecting against foreign attacks is the role of the federal government, he noted.
“There are 14 states where at least part of the state can’t audit their elections,” Lankford said in Yukon. “We’re telling those states, if (they) ever want to receive any federal funds on elections …they’ve got to make sure that they’re actually working towards an auditable election. But the vast majority of the states can already do that.”
The bill does not violate states’ authority, the senator says, because states are not forced to audit their elections. Instead, the bill offers them an incentive for doing so; a carrot rather than a stick.
“But when our state is dependent on Delaware and on Louisiana and on Georgia having fair, auditable elections, I think it’s a wise thing to be able to encourage them, to say 'we can audit our elections in Oklahoma, we’re counting on you to be able to have a fair election process that can also be audited there as well,'” Lankford said.
Support for the bill has not fallen neatly along party lines.
It has the support of conservatives like Lankford and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., along with liberals like Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and moderate Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine.
“I don’t know of anyone who votes more different than I do than Kamala Harris,” Lankford told the crowd of about 40 people in Yukon. “We both have vowels in our state names and I think that’s our only similarity. But she and I have a great relationship, we talk very openly about issues.”