Election Security Concerns Raised by Recent Developments

Last week, President Trump’s national address on election security may have captured more attention, but for Eric Eggers, the real revelation arrived just a day later during a press conference held by the Secretary of Homeland Security.

Eggers said, “[Markwayne Mullin] mentioned that, based on the limited data available thus far, they identified 278,000 noncitizens on the voter rolls. So, we really want to know what actions are being taken about this issue.”

Peter Schweitzer, the host of the discussion, chimed in, recognizing election integrity as a pressing concern. He pointed out the common response from states claiming that these individuals don’t actually vote, which raises additional questions. “But, why is it acceptable to simply remove them from the rolls?” he asked.

This topic of voter roll integrity was also central to Eggers’ 2018 book, Fraud: How the Left Plans to Steal the Next Election. During the research, a company was commissioned to analyze voting data from 21 states, revealing that over 2,000 individuals were registered in multiple states simultaneously.

However, not everyone appears to be taking the warnings from Trump and Marin seriously. Eggers noted in a recent podcast episode that “the intelligence community is clearly not addressing this issue with the seriousness it deserves.” He referenced declassified documents indicating that there had been a suppression of evidence regarding a significant hack of 220 million voter files attributed to China.

According to Eggers, “All Democratic-led states have not engaged with the Justice Department’s request to review their voter rolls.”

The issue of voter rolls is just one aspect of election security. Each state has different voting equipment, which can raise various vulnerabilities. The podcast featured a clip of Hillary Clinton and several Democrats discussing security risks associated with electronic voting systems in the aftermath of the 2016 election.

Threats to election security aren’t solely foreign. Eggers recounted an incident from a 2018 hackathon, where an 11-year-old hacker successfully altered results on a replica of Florida’s election website in under ten minutes.

In fact, a group of Democratic senators, including Elizabeth Warren, Ron Wyden, and Amy Klobuchar, expressed concerns in a 2019 letter regarding a private equity-owned company responsible for manufacturing voting machines, accusing it of neglecting security for the sake of convenience.

Schweitzer, an expert on Chinese interference, suggested that one potential risk of hacking voter data could be the creation of fake IDs for registered voters who haven’t participated in recent elections, allowing someone else to vote in their place. “This data could be exploited,” he remarked.

Eggers added that China has a history of undermining trust in systems, referencing a past incident in the UK where 40 million voter files were compromised, which led to sanctions and criminal charges from the Biden administration.

Schweitzer likened this situation to a detective story, questioning whether China had both the motive and means to hack voter data, to which he answered affirmatively.

He noted that while election fraud is a persistent concern, the critical question remains about its scale. “You don’t need a lot if the election hinges on a few battleground states,” he explained.

Eggers also pointed out that, in the spring of 2020, roughly 20,000 fake IDs were seized at the Chicago airport, with a significant number originating from China and Hong Kong, further illustrating China’s capacity for such activity.

Schweitzer lamented that election security has become mired in partisan politics. He urged Democrats opposing stronger election security measures to clarify their reasoning. “If China is hacking our systems and we have illegal registrations, we need to address these vulnerabilities,” he stated. “Is the resistance due to a belief that fraud might benefit them in elections?”

Or perhaps, he speculated, “some are simply opposing it because it aligns with Trump’s stance.”