Antonio Delgado: “Today, I rise in support of my amendment to the SHIELD Act, which is meant to keep foreign influences from depressing…”

“Today, I rise in support of my amendment to the SHIELD Act, which is meant to keep foreign influences from depressing voter turnout in rural communities. Protecting our democracy and upholding the sanctity of our elections is of critical importance. Madam Chair, the SHIELD Act is urgently needed legislation. Americans will go to the polls in a matter of weeks, and every day, we are presented with more data that our foreign adversaries are working to influence our elections and undermine our democracy. These destructive tactics, as we have seen in previous election cycles, continue to get more sophisticated, with outside parties now manipulating our elections through the ballot box, social media, and spreading misinformation. My amendment fights against these tactics and requires an analysis, following each Federal election, into whether or not illicit foreign money was used to carry out disinformation or propaganda campaigns focused on depressing turnout among rural communities. The amendment also requires a breakdown of the successes or failures of these efforts and recommendations for how we can address these tactics in future elections. Americans in rural communities face many hurdles to exercising the right to vote, including the distance to the nearest poll. We cannot add additional hurdles of foreign disinformation and its influence on voter turnout.…”