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"The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence issued its first set of recommendations about how states can strengthen their election security, and how the federal government can assist them. These are good recommendations, and I endorse them.

Among the most important technical measures that state officials can take is one that the Committee featured: requiring two factor authentication for any registration database that is exposed to the Internet. This defensive step alone might have presented the egregious incursions into election systems the Russians are said to have committed during the run up to the 2016 election.
I also heartily endorse the committee’s view that all electronic voting machines should include a voter-verified paper audit trail. Electronic voting machines are an important modern convenience. They can speed vote counting and, most importantly, provide ballot access to voters who are not able physically to vote at conventional polling places or with paper ballots. We must ensure, however, that every vote is counted — and a paper audit trail is simply indispensable. Reliance on electronic voting machines without a paper audit trail is an invitation to hacking disaster, and a tangible threat to our democracy.

Most important of all, the Committee recommends, and I endorse, routine, statistics-based audits of voting results. Frequent technical tests for tampering, combined with sampling audits, will help us detect attacks against our voting systems that might otherwise escape notice. It is imperative that all Americans are able to have confidence that their votes are counted and that voting results give a true picture of the will of the electorate.

The committee’s recommendations represent a solid step forward in election security, and I hope Congress, the Executive branch, and the states will move forward briskly to implement them."