The negligence of Republican lawmakers in trying to protect the integrity of our elections systems in advance of 2018 is stunning, though perhaps not surprising. From declining to get briefings from the Department of Homeland Security to stifling election security measures, Republicans show no interest in combatting what GOP Sen. Richard Burr, Senate Intelligence Chair, called a near certainty—that Russia is actively "trying to create chaos in our election process." Politico writes:
Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, complained in a letter to DHS last month that his call for a briefing on election security concerns had been rejected because Republicans weren't planning to attend.
Senate Democrats sought to attach a package of election security measures to a recently passed defense bill — and were turned down by Republicans who lead the chamber. And the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee recently said it asked its Republican counterpart to work together on cybersecurity issues but never heard back.
“We absolutely need to get ahead of this,” [Sen. Heidi] Heitkamp, one of the GOP’s top targets in the midterm elections, told POLITICO. “We need to understand the threat. But more importantly, states need to understand this is real.”
Heitkamp of North Dakota and other Democrats running for re-election in states Donald Trump won—such as Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Jon Tester of Montana—are expressing particular concern.
The ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner, said last week he was very frustrated by the fact that it took the Department of Homeland Security nearly a year to reveal the 21 states that had been targeted by Russian hackers in 2016.
Burr and Warner said they hope to outline the interference in a report by the beginning of 2018, but that timeline will still put states in a crunch to make adjustments before voting begins, in some cases, as early as March.
This may not have occurred to Republicans, but if Steve Bannon mounts a primary challenge to every incumbent Republican, the Russians could just as easily wreak havoc on the GOP caucus.