WASHINGTON _ The day after President Donald Trump's top intelligence adviser warned that Russian hackers will be back with a vengeance in the upcoming midterm elections, House Democrats intensified their push to shore up the nation's network of wheezing voting machines that are vulnerable to attack.
The Democrats released a voluminous report detailing the many ways in which elections systems are ripe to be breached, and the 2016 incidents in which at least one state's voter registration files were penetrated and 20 others that were targeted for various forms of cyberattack.
Elections officials and many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are growing increasingly alarmed by how vulnerable their voting systems are. Many are still using machines that are easily hacked, and they have no money to fix them. Congress has so far balked at approving any of the bipartisan measures that address the problem, such as the Secure Elections Act.
House Democrats unveiled their own proposal Wednesday, which would spend more than $1 billion to replace aging voting systems with more secure, auditable technology. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., joined the task force as it unveiled its report on Capitol Hill. "Why aren't we doing something?" she said of the inaction in Congress since national security officials shared with lawmakers evidence of the Russian election meddling more than a year ago. "We cannot let the Russians laugh about and take joy in the success they had in the last election as they go forward to do so again."
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