Moscow Mitch

[Kid Berwyn]

11. MM: "Election Security Is Socialism"

Mitch McConnell’s Opposition to Federal Election Security Is Hitting Home

Kentucky officials say local voting systems are “one emergency away from disaster.”

AJ Vicens
Mother Jones, Nov. 25, 2019

Excerpt...

Larry Norden, director of the Brennan Center’s election reform program, says McConnell’s position is not only hurting his own state. “His role as to what’s happening in Kentucky is the same as his role in the other 49 states,” he says. “At the end of the day, around the country, election jurisdictions are underfunded, we don’t have national standards or a floor for election security for the most part. And he’s one of the main reasons we don’t.”

Snip...

McConnell has largely stood in the way of increased federal funding. In June, Congressional Democrats passed the Securing America’s Federal Elections Act, which would have allocated over $1 billion to states and mandated voting machines be manufactured in the United States, use voter-verified paper ballots, and not be connected to the internet.

In July, Kentucky’s Democratic Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes wrote to McConnell and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) noting that their state was one of just three with elections scheduled for 2019, and urging the senators to support the SAFE Act. “Securing our election systems is a matter of national security,” Grimes wrote. “The Commonwealth and this nation need your leadership.”

Snip...

McConnell has been forced to address his opposition to federal election security legislation several times. In June he told Fox News that such efforts were part of a House Democratic push for “full-bore socialism.” As long he was the majority leader, he pledged, “none of that stuff is going anywhere.” Alongside his stated view that states should keep control of elections, some have speculated that he’s avoided the issue for fear of upsetting President Trump, who links the topic to the Russia investigations that plagued his first two years in office. “[He] knows full well that blocking election security legislation makes it easier for Russia and other foreign powers to attack the next election,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) told Politico in early August at a cybersecurity event. “And my sense is this is a price Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump are willing to accept.”

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https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/11/mitch-mcconnell-kentucky-election-security/