In-Depth: Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) introduced this bill to require a federal assessment of the scope of potential threats to the security of America’s election systems, including cyber, terror, and state actor threats and direct the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) to update federal and state officials on possible vulnerabilities and provide recommendations on how best to stop these threats:

“Our elections are the foundation to our democracy, and if our voting infrastructure is compromised or attacked, the entire integrity of our electoral system could fall into question. During a time marked by an uptick in hostile attacks against election systems across the globe, it is critical that U.S. election officials have accurate and up-to-date information about the real threats to our election security. That was especially clear following Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. This bill would tackle foreign threats to our election infrastructure by using the invaluable expertise of public servants to strengthen the security of federal and state election systems. As a former CIA case officer, I greatly appreciate the objective and nonpartisan work of the national security and intelligence communities, and this legislation would take the necessary steps to use their vital resources to build resiliency in election systems across the country.”

This legislation has been included in H.R 1, the For the People Act, which the House passed along party-lines. Should H.R. 1 fail to pass the Senate, Rep. Spanberger has committed to pursuing this bill as standalone legislation. In a phone interview after H.R. 1 passed the House along party lines, Rep. Spanberger said:

“Based on my background with CIA, one of the things that’s incredibly important to me is that we ensure the security of our elections. Fundamentally, we have to do that. Frankly, the states, which run our elections, don’t necessarily always have the tools to know what threats are out there and how they might address them. My amendment is a pretty straightforward one: We want to give those tools to the states.”

Writing in The Hill, author and “Full Measure” host Sheryl Attkisson argues that Russia’s influence in the 2016 election — and the need to take drastic measures to ensure Russia doesn’t meddle again in 2020’s election — is irrefutable:

“There’s at least one conclusion on which there’s largely bipartisan agreement: Russia interfered with the 2016 presidential election. No vote tallies were changed, according to Obama administration intel analyses, but the interference was serious enough that many insist drastic steps must be taken to avoid a repeat in 2020.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who has nicknamed the For the People Act the “Democrat Politician Protection Act,” has vowed not to allow it to come to a Senate vote. Calling the bill a “parade of horribles” and a “terrible proposal,” McConnell adds, “I believe that we (Republicans) can actually win elections against people who work vote for this turkey.”

Of Note: Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign “spelled out” a “sophisticated, Kremlin-led operation to sow division in the U.S. and upend the [2016] election by using cyberattacks and social media as weapons.” Mueller’s report confirmed the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion, made in January 2017, that there’d been a “significant escalation by the Russians to interfere in U.S. domestic politics” ahead of the 2016 election.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Russia interfered with the election in numerous ways, including: hacking into the Democratic National Committee (DNC), phishing Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s email to obtain Clinton campaign emails, attacking the DNC’s computer network, publishing cell phone numbers and personal email addresses for Nancy Pelosi and other DNC members, publishing tens of thousands of Clinton campaign and DNC emails, and influencing voters via social media. When Rep. Spanberger introduced this bill, her office cited a DNI report noting that Russian agents “tapped into the networks of multiple state and local electoral boards” to steal voter records, scan networks, and breach voter-registration databases in “deliberate attempts to undermine the integrity of the electoral process.”

ProPublica reports that the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), which is ostensibly the federal agency charged with helping local elections officials keep elections secure, was “missing in action” in preparations for the 2016 midterm elections. According to ProPublica’s interviews with over a dozen national, state, and local election officials, the EAC was either “missing in action or working to thwart their efforts.”