Only One Republican Supported That Divisive Election Security Bill. Here’s Why He Voted in Favor—Cyber Saturday

Representative Brian Mast of Florida, a Republican, explains why he has supported an election security bill that the rest of the Republicans, such as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have rejected.

Last week we discussed election security. Let’s dig a little deeper into divisions provoked by one of the major pieces of proposed legislation, the Securing America’s Federal Elections Act. The bill has lately become a political flashpoint, blocked by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who ostensibly fears further federalizing elections more than he fears the subversion of American democracy through hacking, foreign interference, or other hi-jinx.

The bill primarily aims to require states to use voting machines that are up-to-date, not Internet-connected, made in America, and produce paper-based, voter-verifiable ballots. These are all sensible criteria, and it’s hard to argue against their adoption. In addition, the bill would earmark federal funds to help states get the new gear in place by 2020—a more contentious component. (See also this Wall Street Journal editorial which lays out other gripes.)

While the Democratic House passed the bill with 225 votes in June, only one Republican voted in favor: Representative Brain Mast of Florida. It’s worth noting that Mast is not Republican in name only, as an analysis by the data junkie blog FiveThirtyEight makes clear. As of the end of last year, Mast had voted in line with President Donald Trump’s policy initiatives 92.7% of the time.

I thought it might be instructive to hear what Mast had to say about his decision to support the legislation. Here is a video of the congressman justifying his vote, published on Facebook and transcribed and excerpted below.

In the previous election cycle there was attempts by Russians to go out there and actually hack into our elections systems. This is something that we all deserve—confidence in our election systems. This is something that we’ve been working on here in Washington to make sure can be provided. We’re doing that on a number of different fronts. Number one is making sure that all the states across the country have the resources that they need to go out there and ensure that their systems are safe and are not going to be hacked, that they do have the cybersecurity in place that’s needed to make sure that Russian interference can’t go in there and alter people’s votes, alter registrations, alter things that can have a drastic effect on our elections process and diminish people’s confidence in that election process.…

There’s good and bad on both sides of it. I’ve heard people on one side of it say, Listen, if you go out there and you ask that there be a paper ballot system as well, that could slow down the process. If you slow down the process, you may be making longer lines, which may be discouraging some people from voting. That’s some of the argument on the other side of it. But in the end, I think it’s more important that we go out there and be able to have the faith and confidence in our election cycle that we all feel like we deserve. To know that our vote counts. That there’s not cheating in the voting system. That there’s not people voting that aren’t supposed to be voting.…This is a way to go out there and address the fact that we don’t want any cyber intrusion into our voting systems.

Mast speaks common sense. While there are legitimate objections to some of the bill’s provisions, the legislation is, overall, a prudent step forward. Elections are too important to play dice with. McConnell ought to take heed.

Robert Hackett | @rhhackett | robert.hackett@fortune.com