[Page S3639]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



      The National Defense Authorization Act and Election Security

  Mr. President, I have been talking a lot to this day on election 
security, and I will just make a final pitch.
  We hope that Leader McConnell will stop stonewalling the need to 
improve the security of our elections and prevent Russian or Chinese or 
Iranian or North Korean interference in 2020, which would gnaw at the 
roots of our democracy. There are lots of ways we can do it. We have UC 
statements on the floor and legislation we could bring to the floor 
that is bipartisan. We have an NDAA bill within which we will request 
some election security measures, and we have the appropriations process 
by which we can give money that is badly needed to the States.
  We hope our Republican colleagues will join us in this. Preventing 
foreign countries from interfering in our elections is not a Democratic 
or a Republican issue; it is an American issue. It is the very thing 
George Washington and so many of the other Founding Fathers warned us 
against over 200 years ago. There is no need for this to be partisan. 
We hope we can come together on the issue.
  I yield the floor.