For years Americans were blatantly lied to about the security of our election infrastructure, including electronic voting machines and ballot-counting systems. We are releasing a series of previously-classified U.S. Intelligence Community Assessments and other reports proving that our government has long known these machines are extremely exposed to attack. As one assessment states: “We judge that U.S. adversaries, including at a minimum Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, as well as non-state groups, have the capability to compromise U.S. election infrastructure.” The documents also state: “We assess that centralized election-related data repositories, such as voter registration databases, pollbooks, and official election websites, are most vulnerable to exploitation, and adversaries could use access to these systems to disrupt election processes.” Tonight, we are releasing all of these findings, spanning from January 2020 to June 2026. This is a cyber threat aimed at the very heart of our democracy.
Many people have questioned whether it could actually be possible to electronically manipulate vote totals or change election results. Today, we are releasing documents that show the CIA obtained reporting of a specific plot by the Maduro regime in Venezuela to do exactly that—conspiring to digitally rig their own country’s elections in 2020. This reporting included precise details about methods the regime developed to digitally alter vote totals in ways that could not be detected even with an audit. This intelligence underscores why we must take urgent action to ensure that our own systems can never be hacked or compromised.
