COMMITTEE SENSITIVE—RUSSIA INVESTIGATION ONLY
Russian Efforts Against Election Infrastructure
- I. (U) INTRODUCTION
(U) From 2017 to 2019, the Committee held hearings, conducted interviews, and reviewed intelligence related to Russian attempts in 2016 to access election infrastructure. The Committee sought to determine the extent of Russian activities, identify the response of the U.S. Government at the state, local, and federal level to the threat, and make recommendations on how to better prepare for such threats in the future. The Committee received testimony from state election officials, Obama administration officials, and those in the Intelligence Community and elsewhere in the U.S. Government responsible for evaluating threats to elections.
- II. (U) FINDINGS
- The Russian government directed extensive activity, beginning in at least 2014 and carrying into at least 2017, against U.S. election infrastructure[1] at the state and local level. The Committee has seen no evidence that any votes were changed or that any voting machines were manipulated.[2]
- [3]
- ↑ (U) The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) defines election infrastructure as "storage facilities, polling places, and centralized vote tabulation locations used to support the election process, and information and communications technology to include voter registration databases, voting machines, and other systems to manage the election process and report and display results on behalf of state and local governments," according to the January 6, 2017 statement issued by Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson on the Designation of Election Infrastructure as a Critical Infrastructure Subsector, available at https://www.dhs.gov/news/2017/10/06/statement-secretary-johnson-designation-election-infrastructure-critical. Similarly, the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), Pub. L. No. 107-252, Section 301(b)(1) refers to a functionally similar set of equipment as "voting systems," although the definition excludes physical polling places themselves, among other differences, 52 U.S.C. §21081(b). This report uses the term election infrastructure broadly, to refer to the equipment, processes, and systems related to voting, tabulating, reporting, and registration.
- ↑ The Committee has reviewed the intelligence reporting underlying the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) assessment from early 2017. The Committee finds it credible.
- ↑ (U) The names of the states the Committee spoke to have been replaced with numbers. DHS and some states asked the Committee to protect state names before providing the Committee with information. The Committee's goal was to get the most information possible, so state names are anonymized throughout this report. Where the report refers to public testimony by Illinois state election officials, that state is identified.
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COMMITTEE SENSITIVE—RUSSIA INVESTIGATION ONLY
