On Thursday night, President Trump delivered a speech that sent shockwaves across the nation, announcing serious revelations regarding the security of American election infrastructure. These revelations follow extensive investigation by the federal government and the intelligence community. Essentially, findings show that foreign governments have proved their capacity to undermine American elections through infiltrating American voting infrastructure, voter rolls, and voter data—and not just this, but that in the later months of 2020, the intelligence community concealed this information.
The White House declassified extensive documentation showing that intelligence agencies knew about the ability of Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and other entities to compromise American elections. In January 2020, the intelligence community evaluated evidence to conclude that American voting machines were completely vulnerable to hacking from America’s adversaries. Rather than briefing the president, they intentionally kept this information secret, with one FBI agent claiming to operate a “shadow government” to keep this information concealed.
China in particular drew the spotlight for verified interference. The country obtained over 220 million U.S. voter files, through purchasing, hacking, or stealing information. This was the largest data breach in American history, with the majority of American voters exposed to this data breach. They also used social media as a platform for information warfare against Americans, stoking political divisions in advance of the election to weaken domestic cohesion and turn Americans against each other. They capitalized on the subjects including racial tension, international propaganda, and political party differences. The White House noted that “U.S. spy agencies began learning about the compromise of voter registration files in 2020, when they discovered that tens of millions of voters’ data in 18 states had been bought, stolen, or hacked by China. Yet those responsible for sounding the alarm instead kept the information hidden.”
The president also revealed that the Department of Homeland Security had uncovered 278,000 noncitizens registered to vote in just a handful of states. Extrapolating those numbers means that most likely, millions of non-citizens are registered to vote in America. Suffragists fought for the right for women to vote, not for women to have their voices cancelled by a non-citizen.
The speech last night gives rise to grave concern about American election infrastructure. One fraudulent ballot is one too many. The complete lack of safeguards holds the door wide open to fraud—a complete disservice to the sacred right of casting a ballot. Our entire country’s existence is dependent on the right of voters to have their votes accurately translated into electoral outcomes. At the very least, policies such as requiring valid photo ID (which the vast majority of Americans support and which is common practice around the democracies of the world), proving citizenship at the point of registration, and eliminating mass mail-in ballots are a starting place for securing elections. Those perpetrating vulnerabilities must be called to account, in the intelligence community or elsewhere. The time for loose election laws is past. Our very country depends on the remediation of these pressing vulnerabilities.