Oklahoma U.S. Senator James Lankford is not done with efforts to safeguard elections across the country.
Lankford appeared recently before the Senate Rules Committee to stump for his Secure Elections Act. He said he and co-sponsor Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, have met with state and federal elections officials to bolster the legislation.
"We do need to deal with the obvious threats that are coming at our nation dealing with elections. We should have learned the lesson from 2016. Though this will take a long time to be able to roll out real results and responses over the course of our nation, we do need to deal with these threats," Lankford said.
Provisions of the bill were cut from the latest annual defense spending bill last month, though Congress did authorize the $380 million in additional funding it requests.
Lankford said the legislation isn't so much for 2018.
"Quite frankly, there’s a lot of attention being paid to the next election. It’s what is the election structure 20 years from now? Will we let our guard down? Will the focus not be there?" Lankford said.
Lankford said Russia and other bad actors will continue trying to interfere with U.S. elections.
U.S. House Democrats recently released a report listing states most at risk of election interference. Oklahoma is not mentioned.
