BALTIMORE — Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh is now one of 22 attorneys general expressing concern about the integrity of upcoming elections and pushing Congress to take action to protect against such threats to democracy.
Money for security grants that would fund cybersecurity and audit standards at the state and local levels and bipartisan election-security legislation were requested in a letter by the group of chief prosecutors addressed to several key U.S. Senators. The group sent a similar letter to Congress in July 2018, a release from Frosh’s office said.
The attorneys general refer to known threats to voting systems by foreign adversaries, particularly in light of documented cases of Russia attempting to influence the 2016 Presidential election and their continued efforts to covertly infiltrate the American political dialogue. Specifically, the letter acknowledges confirmed reports of Russia successfully breaching an election system in Florida, installing malware on voting systems in North Carolina, and past targeting of election systems in every state in 2016, Frosh’s statement said.
Frosh is joined in the letter 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.
“It’s highly likely that Russia will be coming after our elections again in 2020,” said Attorney General Frosh. “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.”
