For a while, it looked like the Secure Elections Act was the safest vote in the Congress. It was introduced by Republican Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma, nobody's idea of a liberal, and co-sponsored by Democrats Kamala Harris of California and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who are practically everybody's idea of liberals.

As it currently stands, the legislation would grant every state’s top election official security clearance to receive threat information. It would also formalize the practice of information-sharing between the federal government—in particular, the Department of Homeland Security—and states regarding threats to electoral infrastructure. A technical advisory board would establish best practices related to election cybersecurity. Perhaps most significantly, the law would mandate that every state conduct a statistically significant audit following a federal election. It would also incentivize the purchase of voting machines that leave a paper record of votes cast, as opposed to some all-electronic models that do not. This would signify a marked shift away from all-electronic voting, which was encouraged with the passage of the Help Americans Vote Act in 2002.

It was priced to move. Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri, and chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, was scheduled to mark up the bill on Wednesday. Except that he didn't. From Yahoo! News:

In a statement to Yahoo News, White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters says that while the administration “appreciates Congress’s interest in election security, [the Department of Homeland Security] has all the statutory authority it needs to assist state and local officials to improve the security of existing election infrastructure.” Under current law, DHS is already able to work with state and local authorities to protect elections, Walters wrote. If Congress pursues the Secure Elections Act, it should avoid duplicating “existing DHS efforts or the imposition of unnecessary requirements” and “not violate the principles of Federalism.” “We cannot support legislation with inappropriate mandates or that moves power or funding from the states to Washington for the planning and operation of elections,” she added. However, the White House gave no specifics on what parts of the bill it objected to.

The "principles of federalism." As though the president* has the faintest clue what they are.

Lankford, second right, with members of the Senate Intelligence Committee Alex Wong Getty Images

Tell me again about how the Republicans in the Senate are standing up to the band of brigands in this administration*. Blunt's gone to ground, and he's yet to explain why he bailed on the mark-up. Mitch McConnell's dark hand is probably involved in this somewhere. As for the president*, well, we know where he stands, even if he doesn't, because he doesn't know anything about anything and lies about it anyway.

The Trump administration has been unable to settle on how elections should be secured, and whom they should be secured against. Despite consensus from the nation’s intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in 2016, President Trump has dismissed the threat, even as others in his administration have issued unambiguous warnings. Trump has instead asserted that millions voted fraudulently in New York and California for Hillary Clinton, thus giving her an edge of some 3 million votes in the 2016 presidential race. No evidence of statistically significant voter fraud has been uncovered.

Even prior to Blunt's taking a dive, the SEA was being criticized by election security experts as being a watered down version of what it should have been, and what it originally was. But that's no explanation for why it wasn't even sent to the floor for a vote. To the credit of his sponsors, particularly Lankford, who has been a rock on this issue, and whose voice in his party is a lonely one, they're going to keep pushing. But this White House doesn't want untainted elections, and it never has, and, in that, it is a very Republican administration* indeed.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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