Senator Chuck Schumer was in East Greenbush on Monday, pushing a bill he says needs to get passed in the upcoming budget in order to secure the upcoming Presidential election.

"If people no longer trust the freeness, fairness, preciseness of our elections, this could be real trouble for our democracy" Schumer said.

That's why Schumer says he's calling on Congress to pass the Election Security Act, a $1 billion spending bill introduced by Sen. Amy Klobochar (D-MN) in the upcoming budget. 

"It would also provide the resources so that states that didn't have paper ballots -- we do in most all of New York State -- so in case someone interfered we could actually count the ballots and see who was there," Schumer said.

Rennselaer County Board of Elections Commissioner Jason Schofield says between having voters sign poll books, which will soon be electronic, and options for both machine and hand counted ballots, New York's local and federal elections are safe.

"We make sure if we send out 200 ballots and if only 130 people sign the book, that's there 70 unused ballots, to make sure it totally checks out signatures and ballots issued," Schofield said.

That’s even if those ballots are counted electronically.

"They're not connected to the internet at all, it's a standalone server here in our county, which we program with these cards and then it's linked to our machines," Schofield said. "It's impossible to hack an election here, at least in Rensselaer County."

But it’s not impossible to hack anywhere else. Schumer says other states need help from the Center for Internet Security, or CIS, a hub for preventing cyber-threats in East Greenbush. 

CIS is partially funded by the federal government and he says this spending bill would allow them to share their resources with other states and counties. The localities would only be responsible for hiring staff to take advantage.

"CIS provides them expertise," Schumer said. "CIS actually puts up into the cloud the protocols that are needed; they need the resources to implement them. They do need to hire people to implement them, but since it's in the cloud, they don't need to pay for these protocols, they're given for free."

Schumer says there is some current opposition to the bill but he hopes to smooth it over by the time the budget needs to pass on September 30.