Louisiana Secretary of State Tom Schedler says he has penned a letter to President-elect Donald Trump asking him to immediately rescind, after his inauguration Friday, an action by the Obama administration designating election systems in all 50 states’ as “critical infrastructure.”
In a news release, Schedler calls the designation an intrusion of state’s rights and “a dangerous step toward nationalizing state elections.”
In response to allegations of Russian hacks during the election season, the U.S. Department of Homeland Secretary announced on Jan. 6 that election infrastructure—storage facilities, polling places and centralized vote tabulation locations—would be considered a subsector of the existing government facilities critical infrastructure sector.
The designation, the department says, makes election infrastructure a priority for cybersecurity, but does nothing to change the role of the state and federal government in elections.
In a news release from Schedler’s office, the Louisiana secretary of state says there’s trepidation among states about the designation. The news release references portions of Schedler’s letter.
Schedler, a past president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, writes that’s there no credible evidence that Russia hacked the election system. He also says Homeland Security Director Jeh Johnson could not adequately communicate what the change means and why it’s necessary.
“I have yet to hear of a single secretary of state from either side of the aisle who is in favor of this designation,” says Schedler. “We all feel railroaded by this announcement and have serious concerns about the way in which this announcement was delivered and its timing. When it comes to election integrity, I am not going to let the federal government have the keys to our secured election system unless they can better articulate their intentions.”
