Senate

Senate rejects effort to beef up states’ election security spending

by Jordain Carney - 08/01/18 12:39 PM ET

Senators on Wednesday rejected a Democratic proposal to provide states with more election security funding ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.

Senators voted 50-47 against adding an amendment from Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) that would have provided the funding. Sixty votes were needed to include the proposal in the appropriations legislation under Senate rules.

Sen. Bob Corker (Tenn.) was the only GOP senator who voted in support of the amendment to an appropriations measure.

{mosads}The proposal, spearheaded by Leahy, would have provided $250 million for state election security grants.

Republicans argue more funding isn’t needed and that states haven’t yet spent the $380 million previously approved by Congress.

Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) said it was “far too early” for the Senate to sign off on more money.

“We don’t know how the first $380 million has even been spent, and the intelligence committee did an extensive research on how much money was needed and the $380 million amount was what was needed for the moment,” he said.

Leahy fired back that the “lights are blinking red” and Congress should approve more money before the election.

“The president is not going to act. The duty has fallen to us. Let’s not after an election find out that this country was defenseless against attacks from Russia and say oh, gosh, we should have done something,” Leahy said.

The Senate fight over election security comes as lawmakers are signaling that they are increasingly concerned that Russia will try to interfere in the 2018 election.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) warned during a radio interview late last week that there would be “serious consequences” if the Russians tried to intervene in the 2018 congressional elections.

“And for myself what I’ve said is we better not see the Russians’ hand in the 2018 election because there are going to be serious consequences if there are,” he said.

The Daily Beast reported on Thursday that Russian intelligence agents targeted Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) with an attempted breach ahead of the November elections.