COMMITTEE SENSITIVE—RUSSIA INVESTIGATION ONLY
- VI. (U) NO EVIDENCE OF CHANGED VOTES OR MANIPULATED VOTE TALLIES
(U) In its review, the Committee has seen no indications that votes were changed, vote-tallying systems were manipulated, or that any voter registration data was altered or deleted, although the Committee and IC's insight is limited. Poll workers and voting monitors did not report widespread suspicious activity surrounding the 2016 election. DHS Assistant Secretary Jeanette Manfra said in the Committee's open hearing in June 2017 that "I want to reiterate that we do have confidence in the overall integrity of our electoral system because our voting infrastructure is fundamentally resilient." Further, all three witnesses in that hearing—Ms. Manfra, Dr. Liles, and FBI Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Bill Priestap—agreed that they had no evidence that votes themselves were changed in any way in the 2016 election.[1]
- (U) Dr. Liles said that DHS "assessed that multiple checks and redundancies in U.S. election infrastructure, including diversity of systems, non-internet connected voting machines, pre-election testing and processes for media, campaign and election officials to check, audit, and validate the results—all these made it likely that cyber manipulation of the U.S. election systems intended to change the outcome of the national election would be detected."[2] He later said "the level of effort and scale required to change the outcome of a national election would make it nearly impossible to avoid detection."[3]
- (U) States did not report either an uptick in voters showing up at the polls and being unable to vote or a larger than normal quantity of provisional ballots.
- (U) The Committee notes that nationwide elections are often won or lost in a small number of precincts. A sophisticated actor could target efforts at districts where margins are already small, and disenfranchising only a small percentage of voters could have a disproportionate impact on an election's outcome.
- (U) Many state election officials emphasized their concern that press coverage of, and increased attention to, election security could create the very impression the Russians were seeking to foster, namely undermining voters' confidence in election integrity. Several insisted that whenever any official speaks publicly on this issue, they should state clearly the difference between a "scan" and a "hack," and a few even went as far as to suggest that U.S. officials stop
38
COMMITTEE SENSITIVE—RUSSIA INVESTIGATION ONLY
