A group of computer security experts have written to Vice President Kamala Harris to alert her to the fact that voting systems were breached by Trump allies in 2021 and 2022 and to urge her to seek recounts in key states to ensure election verification. 

Following the 2020 election, operatives working with Trump attorneys accessed voting equipment in order to gain copies of the software that records and counts votes. The letter to Vice President Harris argues that this extraordinary and unprecedented breach in election system security merits conducting recounts of paper ballots in order to confirm computer-generated tallies.  The letter also highlights the fact that the post-election audits in many key states will be conducted after certification and after the window to seek recounts closes, and that therefore recounts should be sought promptly. 

The letter states: “Possessing copies of the voting system software enables bad actors to install it on electronic devices and to create their own working replicas of the voting systems, probe them, and develop exploits. Skilled adversaries can decompile the software to get a version of the source code, study it for vulnerabilities, and could even develop malware designed to be installed with minimal physical access to the voting equipment by unskilled accomplices to manipulate the vote counts. Attacks could also be launched by compromising the vendors responsible for programming systems before elections, enabling large-scale distribution of malware.” 

“In December 2022 and again in 2023, many of us, concerned by the security risks posed by these breaches, wrote to the Attorney General, FBI Director, and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director outlining the security concerns and urging an investigation. Though there have been limited, localized investigations, there is no evidence of a federal investigation to determine what was done with the misappropriated voting software.”

The letter is signed by Professor Duncan Buell, Ph.D., Chair Emeritus — NCR Chair in Computer Science and Engineering, Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering, University of South Carolina*; David Jefferson Ph.D., Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory* (retired), Election Integrity Foundation*; Susan Greenhalgh, Senior Advisor for Election Security, Free Speech For People; Chris Klaus, Chief Executive Officer, Fusen World*; William John Malik, Malik Consulting, LLC*; Marilyn R. Marks, Executive Director, Coalition for Good Governance; Peter G. Neumann Ph.D., Chief Scientist, SRI International Computer Science Lab*; and Professor John E. Savage, Ph.D, An Wang Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, Brown University*. 

*Affiliations are listed for identification purposes only and do not imply institutional endorsement.

The letter can be read here.