In 2016, Russia hacked our election, revealing a dangerous vulnerability in America’s electoral security. Despite this unprecedented violation of America’s most sacred political institution, congressional Republican leaders have done nothing to secure our election system and prevent future attacks.

There is a bipartisan effort underway right now, led by Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Sen. Lindsey Graham, to help secure America’s elections. The legislation, which was introduced as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), is currently being blocked by Leader McConnell and Sen. Richard Shelby, chair of the Rules Committee, who claims it’s not related to the national defense bill. Yes, he’s arguing the legislation to secure America’s democracy from foreign adversaries is not related to national defense.

Putin engaged in incredibly bold election hacking at a time when there was a president and administration that cared about Russian meddling. Imagine how much bolder he will be in the next election if Congress does not ensure that our defenses are stronger. Yet Republicans seem more concerned with upsetting Trump than with protecting the next American election.

There’s no disputing it, Russia hacked America’s election.

• Russian hackers infiltrated 39 state election systems in the lead-up to Election Day. The Obama administration believed that Russia hackers may have been preparing to undermine confidence in the election by deleting voter registration information or slowing the tallying process.
• Russian military intelligence, or the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), sent spear-phishing emails to 122 email addresses associated with those likely “involved in the management of voter registration systems” in an attempt to probe or infiltrate voting databases.
• In June 2016 in Illinois, a contractor at the state board of elections discovered that hackers had gained access to the voter database, and as many as 90,000 records were compromised. The hackers tried but failed to alter or delete information.

America’s voting systems remain woefully underprepared for an election.

• There is little doubt that Russia will try again in 2020 and likely 2018.
• Russia is not the only country interested in interfering with our elections. North Korea and Iran havealso engaged in destructive cyberattacks against Western democracies, and the Islamic State has made strategic use of the internet to advance its goals.
• The Federal Government has not notified U.S. state election officials about whether or not their systems were targeted by Russian hackers, and it is unlikely that this information will ever be made public.
• At the DEFCON hacker convention in Las Vegas in July 2017, participants penetrated an electronic poll book used to check in voters as well as an analog a 2000 voting machine.

Vulnerabilities to election hacking are bipartisan vulnerabilities.

• Former Director of National intelligence James Clapper testified in May that “The Russians used cyber operations against both political parties, including hacking into servers used by the Democratic National Committee and releasing stolen data to WikiLeaks and other media outlets. Russia also collected on certain Republican Party- affiliated targets, but did not release any Republican-related data.”
• Russia hacked Lindsey Graham’s campaign too. Sen. Graham has said, “I do believe the Russians hacked into the (Democratic National Committee). I do believe they hacked into (John) Podesta’s email account. They hacked into my campaign account.”
• Russia may have used the 2016 cycle as a testing ground to determine vulnerabilities in U.S. election databases in preparation for more sophisticated campaigns in future elections.

Congressional Republican leaders are balking at even taking the first step to secure American elections.

• The Klobuchar-Graham amendment creates an important framework for analyzing vulnerabilities, but it’s just a first step. The most important thing Congress can do is provide states with adequate resources to improve their election security. But right now, Republicans like Senator Shelby don’t even agree that protecting our elections is an important national security issue, let along something we should be spending money on.