Democrat Senators Petition Biden for Election-Security Grants

Senators are calling for $5 billion in election security grants to be included in President Joe Biden's fiscal 2023 budget.

Led by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., a group of senators wrote a letter in which they said the 2020 election was the "most secure in American history," but said $50 billion is needed over the next decade for election administration and security, reported The Hill.

"We must continue to help both state and local election officials modernize their voting equipment, improve the administration of elections, and strengthen cybersecurity for election systems," the letter reads.

The letter was signed by Sens. Richard Durbin, Ill.; Richard Blumenthal, Conn.; Cory Booker, N.J.; and Tim Kaine, Va.; among others, as well as Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who caucuses with the Democrats.

The senators said that they were working on legislation to "provide election officials a reliable stream of funding to make ongoing improvements to election administration."

"While funding is not a substitute for Congress passing comprehensive legislation to protect the freedom to vote and stop the ongoing attacks on our democracy, we must ensure that state and local election officials continue to receive the resources needed to administer, improve, and modernize our elections," the senators wrote. 

According to the Brennan Center for Justice: "Congress must make a long-term commit­ment to fund­ing elec­tion secur­ity. Before 2018, Congress had not appro­pri­ated funds for elec­tions since the Help Amer­ica Vote Act passed in 2002.

"Since 2018, Congress has invested $805 million to secure our elec­tions. While this fund­ing helped states put them­selves in a much stronger posi­tion to face cyber­se­cur­ity threats in 2020, onetime invest­ments without the certainty of contin­ued fund­ing can mean that import­ant invest­ments are never made.

"Indeed, elec­tion offi­cials are often wary of imple­ment­ing systems and processes that require long-term main­ten­ance for fear that they will be left to pick up the tab once federal funds run out. Sustained federal fund­ing would allow offi­cials to create programs with longev­ity in mind."

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