WASHINGTON — The Senate Intelligence Committee offered recommendations on Tuesday for securing American elections from foreign attacks, pressing states to buy voting machines that produce paper ballots and to secure voter databases, and calling for better cooperation between state and federal elections officials ahead of November’s midterm elections.
The committee’s recommendations — the first such disclosure in its year-old investigation into Russia’s 2016 election meddling — covered much of what experts and intelligence officials have been urging elections authorities to do for months. Yet the panel also urged the Trump administration to make clear that it would not tolerate any attacks on systems used to run elections.
“The U.S. government should clearly communicate to adversaries that an attack on our election infrastructure is a hostile act, and we will respond accordingly,” the committee’s Republican chairman, Senator Richard M. Burr of North Carolina, and Democratic vice chairman, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, said in a statement.
The administration has been criticized for what many consider a tepid response to Russian interference in 2016 election and warnings about Moscow targeting this November’s elections.
Top American intelligence officials have warned that Russia sees its digital campaign to fan the country’s social and political divisions in 2016 as a success, and is already meddling in the midterm elections. A central focus of the campaign — the use of fake social media accounts to spread propaganda and disinformation — has carried on unabated, the officials said.
