Amy Klobuchar prods White House to promote election-security measures

Sen. Amy Klobuchar on Sunday said the White House needs to be more proactive in supporting measures that thwart cyber intrusions into elections, saying Russian meddlers found success in 2016 and the problem persists.

“Maybe Russia didn’t use tanks, maybe they didn’t use missiles, but they invaded our democracy all the same,” Ms. Klobuchar, Minnesota Democrat and 2020 presidential candidate, told NBC’s Meet the Press. “They did it by meddling, and not just meddling, but actually invading our democracy. They actually got into voter rolls. We’re finding out now that they got into some county in Florida.”

Ms. Klobuchar and Sen. James Lankford, Oklahoma Republican, drafted the Secure Elections Act, which tasks the Department of Homeland Security with sharing data on cyber threats with state elections officials and recommending security enhancements, while encouraging the use of paper ballots as a backup to digital equipment.

The bill stalled amid state objections and pushback from White House, which feared shifting too much power to the federal government.

Ms. Klobuchar said the administration has “squelched” efforts to bolster election security.

“They won’t even pass the bipartisan bill for backup paper ballots,” Ms. Klobuchar said. “That would be a big help … to ensure that, if one state goes bad, or one county is invaded, that we’re able to have a successful 2020 election, where we actually have the American people voting, and not the Russians determining what happened.”