Are Kansas and Missouri making sure this year’s elections are secure from meddling?
Kansas is one of five states in the country that is getting an “F” in election security right now, ahead of November’s election. In the same Center for American Progress report that flunked Kansas last month, Missouri got a “D.”
Unfortunately, after more than a year of conversation about Russian meddling in our 2016 election, the country as a whole still hasn’t made election security the top priority it ought to be.
At an a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Wednesday, Department of Homeland Security officials said fewer than two dozen state election officials have the security clearance they’re supposed to have before getting briefed on specific threats. Just 19 states have signed up for the risk assessments the DHS is offering, and 14 are getting their “cyber hygiene” scans.
Why? Trust is an issue: It took DHS a year to fully inform the 21 states that had been targeted by Russian hackers in 2016.
At the hearing, DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said at least they have the right contact numbers for state officials now: “Today, I can say with confidence that we know whom to contact in every state to share threat information. That capability did not exist in 2016.”
The whole issue has been seen as far more partisan than it should have been, with the president consistently underplaying any talk of meddling. But both Democrats and Republicans on the intelligence committee do see Russia’s incursions as ongoing and the stakes as high.
“The fabric of democracy,” Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt said at the hearing, “is people’s belief that what happened on Election Day was what actually happened.”
He’s right that any loss of confidence in the system is damaging. Yet not knowing about attempts to infiltrate our system is even worse.
Maine Sen. Susan Collins noted with frustration that primary elections have already started, yet “everyone seems focused on November” to the extent they’re focused at all.
$380 million to help states with election security is in in the omnibus spending bill Congress expects to pass Friday.
Meanwhile, Nielsen called states that don’t provide a paper trail of votes for audits “a national security concern.” That means you, Kansas.
Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who is running for governor and will himself be on a Republican primary ballot in August, has shown far more concern about the imagined threat of voter fraud by non-citizens.
But he has also said that he is pushing the 20 of the state’s 105 counties that don’t use paper trail-producing machines to switch to them, and has told counties they will not receive state subsidies for new voting machines unless they do. He wrote off the Center for American Progress report as a left-wing hit job.
Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft said in a statement to The Star that his office “takes cyber-security very seriously,” and is working with the DHS. Missouri does do post-election audits, does use machines that leave a paper trail, and does a daily backup of voter registration rolls. The security report said the state’s audits weren’t done widely enough, and that Missouri should require counties to reconcile precinct totals with countywide results.
Obama DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson said the issue of Russian interference was all but ignored in the fall of 2016 because the story broke the same day the Access Hollywood tape of Donald Trump talking about grabbing women was released. That’s certainly fair criticism of us in the media.
“Vladimir Putin himself,” Johnson said, “orchestrated cyber attacks on our nation for the purpose of influencing the election that year, plain and simple. The experience was a wake-up call for our nation.”
But was it? We’ll soon find out.
This story was originally published March 22, 2018 at 7:00 AM with the headline "Are Kansas and Missouri making sure this year’s elections are secure from meddling?."