(CNN) — The Office of the Director of National Intelligence obtained voting machines from Puerto Rico and probed them for security vulnerabilities, the office said in a statement to CNN Wednesday.
The extraordinary move comes amid Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s broader search for voter fraud at the behest of President Donald Trump, who has falsely claimed that the 2020 election was rigged despite numerous court rulings and audits debunking the claim. Gabbard was present as FBI agents executed a search warrant in Fulton County, Georgia, last week related to the 2020 election.
The ODNI claimed in its statement to have found “extremely concerning” cybersecurity and operational deployment practices with the voting machines in Puerto Rico but did not provide detailed evidence.
The US attorney in Puerto Rico, Homeland Security Investigations agents and an FBI supervisory special agent “facilitated the voluntary turnover of electronic voting hardware and software to ODNI for analysis,” an ODNI spokesperson said. It’s unclear exactly when the agency received and studied the voting machines.
In justifying the voting equipment 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 executive director of a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that works with election officials, told CNN that voting machines are subject to regular testing and a strict chain of custody. The machines count paper ballots that are audited and recounted to confirm the machine counts. Those are all security controls that have proven effective, he said.
The director of national intelligence coordinates intelligence from across the 17 other organizations in the US intelligence community. It is unprecedented for the ODNI to play such a hands-on role in election infrastructure, former intelligence officials and election experts told CNN.
“This is well beyond what ODNI has the authority or expertise to do,” a former senior US intelligence official who has worked on election security told CNN Wednesday in reaction to the ODNI statement. “This is amateur hour.”
The ODNI activity 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 told CNN.
Reuters first reported ODNI’s probe in Puerto Rico and said the activity took place last spring.
It was not clear if and when ODNI would release more public information on its probe of voting equipment in Puerto Rico. The agency “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 said.
CNN has requested comment from election officials in Puerto Rico.
ODNI said that among the cybersecurity concerns it found was “the configuration of extensive use of cellular modems throughout the voting system architecture that actively connected to cellular networks outside of the United States.”
But Kevin Skoglund, an expert in the cybersecurity of voting machines and other election equipment, told CNN that the agency has not “given any meaningful details” on its findings.
“Modems are sometimes used to transmit encrypted files with vote totals back to headquarters. That is not concerning on its own,” Skoglund said. “I know this because, in 2018, I was one of the experts that discovered and improved the security of over 35 jurisdictions that were using such modems.”
Any modems in Puerto Rico “are likely external modems that are only plugged in for a few minutes at the end of the night, which greatly reduces the risk of unauthorized access,” said Skoglund, who is chief technologist for the non-partisan Citizens for Better Elections.
Puerto Rico also uses hand-marked paper ballots and prints vote totals in each precinct, which “make it difficult to change results without anyone noticing,” he added.
The-CNN-Wire
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