Do Declassified Files Support Trump’s Election Security Claims?

Protecting America’s “election infrastructure” has been a bipartisan goal. After the 2000 presidential election and following Russian election meddling in the 2016 election, the U.S. sought to strengthen and streamline election mechanics.

While electoral processes are administered by state governments, most votes are now recorded on some form of paper ballot.

Trump may have a more partisan motive behind rehashing these claims. He appears to be using these concerns to cast doubt on the lost 2020 presidential election and question the validity of future elections.

In his speech, Trump confirmed that previously secret US intelligence reviews had revealed that the US government had identified voting machines as “vulnerable”.

“We have assessed that the adversaries of the United States, at least Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and non-governmental groups, have the potential to undermine America’s electoral infrastructure,” he said.

Documents released by the Trump administration Include the January 2020 unassigned NIC assessment, External He acknowledged that “voting and voting machine setup is vulnerable to cyber, supply chain, or insider threats,” which were vulnerabilities in that year’s election.

Machines with no paper backups are “particularly vulnerable to cyber operations,” he said.

However, the NIC review also noted that “the security and mitigation measures used in these processes and the nationwide distribution of voting machine storage locations make it difficult for an adversary to coordinate a campaign to control vote results across a state or multiple states.”

The specific assessment that Trump may be referring to is another. Unclassified NIC report from August 2020, External“Foreign countries or other actors can compromise our electoral infrastructure,” he said.

It’s also worth noting that Trump has taken steps in recent years to cut funding and weaken the independence of some government programs and agencies tasked with overseeing election security.