BATON ROUGE (AP) — Secretary of State Tom Schedler is asking President Donald Trump to reverse a last-minute decision by the Obama administration to designate election systems as critical infrastructure.
The U.S. Homeland Security Department announced the move Jan. 6 with minimal notice to the National Association of Secretaries of State. The decision drew intense criticism from state and federal elections organizations.
Schedler wrote to Trump asking him to undo the action. Louisiana's secretary of state wrote of "trepidation among the states" about the designation as an intrusion on states' rights and a step toward nationalizing elections.
Discussions about whether to designate elections systems as critical infrastructure began in August after hackers targeted voter registration systems of more than 20 states. Homeland Security said it wasn't intended as a federal takeover of state elections.
