The U.S. House Homeland Security Committee queried a bipartisan duo of state officials in charge of overseeing elections over preparedness to maintain the integrity of the vote in face of security and funding concerns.
Online actors have tried to penetrate Kentucky’s election systems, Secretary of State Michael Adams, a Republican, told lawmakers on the panel Friday. “We’ve not been breached but there has been a rattling of our doorknob, I’ll put it that way,” he said without providing details.
In Michigan, problems include “an attempt to hack the voters’ mind,” Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, told lawmakers. “Efforts to sow those seeds of doubt in our electorates’ mind have come from domestic sources and from foreign sources, this year more than ever before,” she said.
Both state officials called for more money, as the U.S. Postal Service and local authorities alike prepare to handle an unprecedented number of mailed-in ballots thanks to Covid-19.
“Congress needs to act swiftly, not only to fully fund our Postal Service, but to provide needed additional funds to states as we continue to prepare for record-breaking voter turnout this November,” Benson said.
Postal Concerns
Adams said he encouraged more funding, “but not at the expense of any strings attached, red tape, or direction in how to run the elections.”
The hearing is the latest development in what’s become a political football in Washington. President Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked expanded voting by mail, saying -- without offering evidence -- that it could lead to fraud. The postmaster general, Republican donor Louis DeJoy, became a magnet for Democratic criticism over what he characterized as an efficiency campaign to address longstanding financial losses.
That drive involved slowing deliveries and removing equipment from some facilities, stoking concerns about a purposeful effort to undermine ballot processing. DeJoy called a halt to the initiative until after the election and promised that delivering ballots would be the top priority for the Postal Service.
The House held a rare Saturday session to pass legislation that would roll back any changes made at the Postal Service since January and provide $25 billion in new funding. Twenty-six Republicans joined with the Democratic majority to approve the bill, which was opposed by Trump, but it’s unlikely to even get a vote in the Republican-controlled Senate.
Partisan Bickering
Trump is “waging an attack on the Postal Service to serve his own political interests,” Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat who chairs the committee, said at the hearing. The president “must stop peddling disinformation that could suppress voter participation and undermine confidence in election results,” he said.