U.S. Reps. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) and David Valadao (R-CA) introduced the SECURE IT Act in the House this week, promoting required, simulated attacks on voting systems as part of their certification process to improve security.
“We continue to hear reports of foreign governments, individuals, and companies actively working to influence U.S. elections and subvert our democracy,” Spanberger said. “The sanctity of our free and fair elections is core to our identity as Americans. I’m proud to lead this bipartisan legislation to help uncover potential vulnerabilities in our election systems, strengthen our elections infrastructure, and raise our defenses against bad actors.”
Meant to prove and improve their capabilities against foreign attacks, the bill’s authors called out governments including Russia and Iran in stressing the need for the bill. They added that foreign intelligence services continue to meddle in and attempt to influence U.S. elections, and that steps must be taken to secure these critical systems against interference. Accredited labs handle the testing and certification of these systems, but existing law does not explicitly require penetration testing.
SECURE IT comes as the United States enters into the full swing of the 2024 presidential election. The bill also drew fresh eyes to a stalled effort in the Senate for the same thing – S.1500, introduced by U.S. Sens. Mark Warner (D-VA) and Susan Collins (R-ME) last year.
Notably, the bill would also direct the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) to create a voluntary program for vetted researchers to access voting systems provided voluntarily by manufacturers. This program would be focused on discovering vulnerabilities, which would then be disclosed to both the manufacturer and EAC.
“People need to have confidence in their vote and our elections in order for democracy to succeed,” Valadao said. “The SECURE IT Act will help us find and fix the vulnerabilities in our voting systems that could be exploited by foreign or domestic adversaries.”