The Editorial Board

USA TODAY

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell likes to boast that he's the "grim reaper," bedeviling a chamber where progressive legislation from House Democrats comes to die. Funny guy. But the joke sours fast when the languishing proposals include sensible, bipartisan measures to protect America's elections from another "concerted attack," like the one special counsel Robert Mueller found was launched by Russia in 2016.

As Mueller meticulously detailed, Russian operatives not only conducted a vast disinformation campaign through Twitter and Facebook, and hacked documents from Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, but also tried to penetrate 21 state election-related networks. In congressional testimony on Wednesday, former FBI officials detailed some of the textbook Russian spy craft used in the election interference effort.

The 2020 presidential election is the next target. And any Russian desire to influence that contest received a gift Wednesday when President Donald Trump stunningly asserted he'd accept dirt on a political opponent from a foreign country.

“Make no mistake," FBI Director Christopher Wray told a Senate subcommittee last month about the risk of foreign assaults on the next election, "the threat just keeps escalating, and we’re going to have to up our game to stay ahead of it."

Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle are working to do exactly that. One plan — the Secure Elections Act sponsored by Sens. James Lankford, R-Okla., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. — would toughen voting systems by enabling federal intelligence services and state election officials to more easily share cyber information. It would also speed up security clearances, allowing those state officials access to the information, and ensure a paper-trail audit of elections. Five states — Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana, New Jersey and South Carolina — still can't audit election results.

OPPOSING VIEW:Federal solution isn't always the answer

Other bipartisan Senate proposals would criminalize any hacking of voting systems and lock in severe sanctions should Russia again attempt to interfere in a U.S. election.

Stanford University just published a comprehensive review of weaknesses in the U.S. election process and offered solutions, including an endorsement of the Honest Ads Act, originally co-sponsored by the late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

That proposal would require the Federal Election Commission to publicly archive social media political ads and who paid for them. "American voters must choose their leaders," the Stanford authors said, "without help or interference from outsiders."

As it stands, however, these and other worthwhile reforms remain interred in the grim reaper's graveyard. Roy Blunt of Missouri, a senior Republican in the Senate, said that passage of any election security proposal is unlikely, and that McConnell "is of the view that this debate reaches no conclusion."

How can this be? McConnell, in his "case closed" speech after the release of Mueller's findings, said Congress did its duty last year by sending $380 million in election security money to the states.

State and federal elections officials say, however, that the money wasn't enough to upgrade antiquated systems. The Election Security Act sponsored by Democrats in the House and Senate would make $1 billion in grants available, and mandate other safeguards. But there's little chance of a Senate vote unless McConnell allows it.

Maybe the Kentucky Republican doesn't want to anger Trump, who bristles at the suggestion — implicit in election security proposals — that his 2016 victory was in any way tarnished or influenced by anyone other than himself.

If that's the case, McConnell's allegiance is sadly misplaced. It should be to the more than 140 million Americans expected to vote in 2020, and to the protection of American democracy itself.

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