The Office of the Director of National Intelligence obtained voting machines from Puerto Rico and probed them for safety vulnerabilities, the office mentioned in a press release to NCS Wednesday.
The extraordinary transfer comes amid Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s broader seek for voter fraud on the behest of President Donald Trump, who has falsely claimed that the 2020 election was rigged regardless of quite a few courtroom rulings and audits debunking the declare. Gabbard was current as FBI agents executed a search warrant in Fulton County, Georgia, final week associated to the 2020 election.
The ODNI claimed in its assertion to have discovered “extremely concerning” cybersecurity and operational deployment practices with the voting machines in Puerto Rico however didn’t present proof.
The US legal professional in Puerto Rico, Homeland Security Investigations brokers and an FBI supervisory particular agent “facilitated the voluntary turnover of electronic voting hardware and software to ODNI for analysis,” an ODNI spokesperson mentioned. It’s unclear precisely when the company obtained and studied the voting machines.
In justifying the voting tools probe, the ODNI cited “publicly reported claims relating to elections in Puerto Rico alleging discrepancies and systemic anomalies in their electronic voting systems.”
David Becker, the chief director of a nonpartisan, nonprofit group that works with election officers, informed NCS that voting machines are topic to common testing and a strict chain of custody. The machines depend paper ballots which can be audited and recounted to substantiate the machine counts. Those are all safety controls which have confirmed efficient, he mentioned.
The director of nationwide intelligence coordinates intelligence from throughout the 17 different group in the US intelligence neighborhood. It is unprecedented for the ODNI to play such a hands-on function in election infrastructure, former intelligence officers and election consultants informed NCS.
“This is well beyond what ODNI has the authority or expertise to do,” a former senior US intelligence official who has labored on election safety informed NCS Wednesday in response to the ODNI assertion. “This is amateur hour.”
The ODNI exercise in Puerto Rico “appears intended to intimidate and denigrate election officials, along with the constant threats of prosecutions, and the repeated lies about our election system,” Becker informed NCS.
Reuters first reported ODNI’s probe in Puerto Rico and mentioned the exercise befell final spring.
It was not clear if and when ODNI would launch extra public data on its probe of voting tools in Puerto Rico. The company “is currently coordinating with our partners across the U.S. government to provide the findings from our inquiry to agencies that can take actions to improve the security of our system,” the ODNI spokesperson mentioned.
NCS has requested remark from election officers in Puerto Rico.