U.S. Democrats Push $1 billion Bill For Election Security

Congressional Democrats introduced legislation on Wednesday that would provide more than $1 billion to boost cyber security of U.S. voting systems, and Vice President Mike Pence defended the administration's efforts to protect polls from hackers, Reuters reported. 

The measure followed warnings on Tuesday from U.S. intelligence officials that midterm races in November are likely to see renewed meddling from Russia and possibly other foreign adversaries.

"We cannot let the Russians laugh about and take joy in the success they had in the last election," Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives, told a news conference. "Their goal is to undermine democracy."

Lawmakers have introduced several bills, some with bipartisan support, to bolster election security since the 2016 polls in which Republican Donald Trump was elected president. None have become law.

The new bill is the most comprehensive to date and is aimed at bolstering protection for the midterms and subsequent elections. It has no Republican co-sponsors in the House, which the party controls, and is therefore unlikely to succeed.

Pence, speaking at an event hosted by the online news site Axios, said Americans could trust the 2016 election results and that it was an "ongoing effort" of Trump's administration to protect election infrastructure.

He also incorrectly said it was the "universal conclusion" among intelligence agencies that Moscow's efforts had no impact on the 2016 election outcome.

The agencies said in a January 2017 report that no assessment was made about the impact of Russian meddling but that Russia used hacking and propaganda to try to tilt the election in Trump's favor. Russian President...