Desperate Bill Nelson Claims Russians Have Penetrated Florida Elections

Senator Bill Nelson (D-Florida) is arguably the least accomplished Senators in the U.S. Senate and he is currently losing in his re-election bid to the successful Governor Rick Scott of Florida.   The desperate Nelson has turned on his friends in an appeal to the far left.  Now he is making wild accusations: 

Russian operatives have "penetrated" some of Florida's voter registration systems ahead of the 2018 midterms, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson said Wednesday, adding new urgency to concerns about hacking.

However, Nelson offers no proof.

"They have already penetrated certain counties in the state and they now have free rein to move about," Nelson told the Tampa Bay Times before a campaign event in Tampa. He said something similar a day earlier in Tallahassee but declined to elaborate.

"That's classified," the Democrat said Tuesday.

He is facing a re-election challenge in November from Gov. Rick Scott, whose administration said it has no knowledge of the allegations made by Nelson.

Nelson’s reason is simple:

Trailing in most polls and being significantly outspent in a U.S. Senate race that could top $200 million in campaign spending, three-term incumbent Democrat Sen. Bill Nelson strayed momentarily from hammering challenger Gov. Rick Scott on his personal finances this week to suggest Florida’s 2018 elections have already been "penetrated" by Russian hackers.

Nelson made the vague claim during a Tallahassee campaign stop Tuesday and repeated it Wednesday during an interview with the Tampa Bay Times.

As Secretary of State Ken Detzner elaborated on the latter (emphasis added):

Detzner’s office Wednesday said it did not have any new information regarding threats to the state’s electoral systems from DHS, adding in a statement that it has “received zero information from Sen. Nelson or his staff that supports his claims. If Sen. Nelson has specific information about threats to our elections, he should share it with election officials in Florida.”

Either way, this does not look good for Nelson.  He is either wrong and fabricating the allegations for political gain.  Or he is hiding information from Florida election officials they could use right now to combat Russian meddling or hacking. 

There is a reason why Desperate Bill Nelson is losing in the polls. 

ICYMI: Former Obama Official Admits the Obama Administration Is at Fault for Russian Meddling

As Trey Gowdy points out there is zero evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, an Obama Administration official last week testified that they knew of attempted Russian meddling and were told to “stand down” and not try to stop it (emphasis added) :

The Obama White House’s chief cyber official testified Wednesday that proposals he was developing to counter Russia’s attack on the U.S. presidential election were put on a “back burner” after he was ordered to “stand down” his efforts in the summer of 2016.

The startling admission has largely been ignored by the media.   Monica Crowley lays out a case for why the Obama Administration stood down in light of Russian meddling:

Long before the 2016 election, when Donald Trump was a mere private citizen, Russia was engaged in widespread cyber-aggression against the United States. Moscow racheted up those attacks during the campaign. And yet, despite knowledge of the ongoing cyberwarfare, the president at the time, Barack Obama, and his intelligence chiefs — John Brennan at the CIA, James Clapper at National Intelligence, James Comey and his predecessor, Robert Mueller, at the FBI — reportedly didn’t lift a finger to stop it.

Why? Because the Obama administration was obsessed with protecting its bigger agenda: namely, closing and implementing the Iran nuclear deal and trying to save their collapsed Russian “reset.” Calling Russia on its malign cyber activity would have imperiled both initiatives, so Obama and his intel team apparently chose to ignore it, even as it escalated. 

Regardless of the reason, the Obama Administration response to Russian meddling is extremely problematic.  This should be a much bigger story than the endless focus on collusion, on which Trey Gowdy notes “he has yet to see a 'scintilla' of evidence showing that there was coordination between the two sides.”

When It Comes to Protecting Our Elections from Cybersecurity Threats, States Know What They’re Doing

Tom Spencer has an article at the Daily Signal that makes a great point: “When It Comes to Protecting Our Elections, States Know What They’re Doing:”. While some have been screaming the 2016 election was hacked, the reality is that not a single vote was hacked and the states are doing a great job of protecting the security of elections from hacking. The states running elections is a good thing for cybersecurity as Tom explains:

Our federalist structure, which gives states the primary control and responsibility for election administration, is the best defense against the hacking of an election. Our decentralized system consists of thousands of different jurisdictions, which use different procedures, equipment, servers, vendors, and locations for data at every step of the election process, from voter registration to the final certification of results. Federalizing the administration of elections would remove this vital safeguard.

Not only is the diversity of state systems helping preventing hacking, the states are doing a better job than the Federal Government:

States and localities around the country are experts in election administration and have been thinking about and protecting the security of our election system long before it ever entered the national spotlight. And the federal government is no bastion of cybersecurity, as demonstrated by the fact that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was hacked over 200 times.

The sad fact is the real purpose of some promoting the false narrative that states were hacked is not really about cybersecurity but undermining the 2016 election and ironically helping Russia:

In a sense, Russia is winning without “firing a shot,” as the myth of their election hacking has undermined confidence in the 2016 election. Those who wish to sow discord in the U.S., like Russia, have found reliable allies in politicians, pundits, and computer scientists who are eager to create a centralized election administration system that is far easier to hack.

This is far worse than simply casting doubt on our election systems and election results. Rather, it creates the potential for real harm to our election administration systems while ignoring the efforts of hardworking election officials across the country.

Let the states continue to run elections.  They have done a better job at cybersecurity than the Federal Government.

DOJ Announces New Cybersecurity Task Force

Yesterday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the creation of a new cybersecurity task force at the Department of Justice:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has ordered the creation of the Justice Department’s Cyber-Digital Task Force, which will canvass the many ways that the Department is combatting the global cyber threat, and will also identify how federal law enforcement can more effectively accomplish its mission in this vital and evolving area. 

“The Internet has given us amazing new tools that help us work, communicate, and participate in our economy, but these tools can also be exploited by criminals, terrorists, and enemy governments,” Attorney General Sessions said.  “At the Department of Justice, we take these threats seriously.  That is why today I am ordering the creation of a Cyber-Digital Task Force to advise me on the most effective ways that this Department can confront these threats and keep the American people safe.” 

The Task Force will be chaired by a senior Department official appointed by the Deputy Attorney General [Rod Rosenstein] and will consist of representatives from the Department’s Criminal Division, the National Security Division, the United States Attorney’s Office community, the Office of Legal Policy, the Office of Privacy and Civil Liberties, the Office of the Chief Information Officer, the ATF, FBI, DEA, and the U.S. Marshals Service. . . . The Task Force will be responsible for issuing a report to the Attorney General by the end of June.  

The Attorney General has asked the Task Force to prioritize its study of efforts to interfere with our elections; efforts to interfere with our critical infrastructure; the use of the Internet to spread violent ideologies and to recruit followers; the mass theft of corporate, governmental, and private information; the use of technology to avoid or frustrate law enforcement; and the mass exploitation of computers and other digital devices to attack American citizens and businesses.  The scope of the Task Force’s report is not limited to these categories.

Attorney General Sessions realizes that, despite the media attention on alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election (and indeed, almost every story on this task force has a headline about its study of efforts to interfere with our elections), the cybersecurity threat America faces from bad actors is much broader.  As he says in the memorandum creating the task force, after noting the pervasiveness of technology in the modern world:

Indeed, the scale of this cyber threat, and the range of actors that use cyber attacks and intrusions to achieve their objectives, have grown in alarming ways. . . . Most of the pressing cyber threats that our nation faces transcend easy categorization.  

We look forward to seeing this task force's report.  Unlike many efforts championed by the liberals to respond to allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election, it will provide guidance and potential solutions that are helpful to state and local election officials without usurping their important role in election administration, will complement the important cybersecurity work being done by election officials, will not create a new permanent federal bureaucracy, and will not limit law-abiding Americans' rights on the Internet.