Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh (D) and 22 of his Democratic colleagues from around the country have asked Congress to secure the U.S. elections system and provide states with additional funding.
The attorneys general sent their letter to leading U.S. senators on Tuesday, just days after President Trump in an interview with ABC News said he would consider any opposition research brought to his reelection campaign by foreign governments.
The AG’s also cite the conclusions of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s recent report, which found that Russia tried to interfere in the 2016 presidential election in multiple ways.
“Intelligence officials and the Department of Justice continue to warn that our election systems have been a target for foreign adversaries and that those same adversaries are currently working to undermine the upcoming elections,” the attorneys general wrote.
In their letter, Frosh and the AG’s ask Congress to provide additional election security grants to states and localities, support the establishment of cybersecurity and audit standards for election systems, and pass bipartisan election-security legislation.
“It’s highly likely that Russia will be coming after our elections again in 2020,” Frosh said in a statement. “The Trump administration has not taken sufficient action to combat this threat to our national security. Without fair elections, there is no democracy. I urge Congress to step in to ensure that no one is able to hijack our elections ever again.”
In addition to Maryland, the letter to Congress was signed by the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington.
The House earlier this year passed an ethics and election reform bill sponsored by Rep. John P. Sarbanes (D-Md.), but it is unlikely to move in the Senate.
Josh Kurtz
Founding editor
Founding Editor Josh Kurtz is a veteran chronicler of Maryland politics and government. He began covering the State House in 1995 for The Gazette newspapers, and has been writing about state and local politics ever since. He was an editor at Roll Call, the Capitol Hill newspaper, for eight years, and for eight years was the editor of E&E Daily, which covers energy and environmental policy on Capitol Hill. For 6 1/2 years Kurtz wrote a weekly column on state politics for Center Maryland and has written for several other Maryland publications as well. Kurtz regularly gives speeches and appears on TV and radio shows to discuss Maryland politics.
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