Trump official tried to ban voting machines in half of U.S. states: sources - BERITAJA

U.S. President Donald Trump’s election-security czar past twelvemonth sought to ban voting machines used successful much than half of U.S. states by asking whether the Commerce Department could state their components national-security risks, according to 2 group pinch nonstop knowledge of the matter.

White House advisor Kurt Olsen, a lawyer Trump has tasked pinch proving widely debunked election-rigging conspiracy theories, pushed the scheme to target Dominion Voting Systems machines. The thought emerged, the sources said, arsenic Olsen and different officials brainstormed about really the national authorities could return power complete elections from U.S. states, an thought publically aired by Trump.

Olsen wanted a nationalist strategy of hand-counted insubstantial ballots, the sources said, a predominant Trump request immoderate election-security experts opportunity would beryllium little meticulous and perchance riskier than the existent strategy of machines with auditable insubstantial trails that almost each cities and states use.

The scheme to exclude the machines, reported present first, sewage acold capable that successful September, Commerce Department officials began exploring what grounds could beryllium invoked to execute it, 3 further sources said. It yet collapsed, however, because Olsen and different management staffers moving pinch him grounded to supply grounds to warrant specified a move, 2 of the sources said.

The section is portion of a far-reaching Trump management push to encroach connected authorities and section governments’ authority to tally elections – which is granted to them successful the U.S. Constitution to forestall the executive branch from seizing power. Olsen is working pinch the nation’s apical intelligence and rule enforcement agencies to chase voting-rigging claims.

A Reuters investigation earlier this period recovered management officials and investigators successful astatine slightest 8 states person sought confidential records, pressed for entree to voting equipment and re-examined voter-fraud cases that courts and bipartisan reviews person rejected. Trump and Republican friends are besides pursuing unprecedented plans to redraw predetermination districts earlier than accustomed to unafraid advantages successful the November midterm legislature elections.

Olsen, who Democratic senators are seeking to region from his post, aimed to invalidate Dominion voting machines before the midterms, the 2 sources said.

Others progressive successful the deliberations included Paul McNamara, a elder adjutant of Trump’s spy main Tulsi Gabbard, and Brian Sikma, a typical adjunct to Trump who useful connected his Domestic Policy Council, according to 1 of the 2 sources pinch nonstop knowledge of the matter. Olsen has worked intimately pinch Gabbard’s Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).

Early past summer, McNamara asked officials successful the Commerce Department to see the imaginable nickname of Dominion chips and package arsenic a nationalist information risk, the 2 sources said.

At the time, McNamara headed an ODNI task unit that worked pinch officials crossed the management to analyse vulnerabilities successful the nation’s voting machines. The 2 sources said McNamara said about the rumor to elder officials astatine the U.S. Commerce Department, which is tally by Secretary Howard Lutnick.

Reuters could not find whether Lutnick was progressive successful aliases alert of those discussions.

A Commerce Department spokesperson said Lutnick ne'er met aliases discussed election-integrity issues pinch McNamara and did not “engage successful the taxable astatine all.” The spokesperson declined to remark connected whether Lutnick’s agency aliases different officials were involved.

Olivia Coleman, a spokesperson for Gabbard’s agency, said ODNI, including McNamara, “did not little connected nor coordinate a scheme pinch the Department of Commerce to return actions to prohibition Dominion voting machines.”

Olsen, McNamara and Sikma did not respond to requests for interviews. Responding to this story, Democratic U.S. Senator Alex Padilla said Olsen should beryllium fired, calling him a threat to populist successful a station connected X.

Democrats and election-integrity experts interest that, pinch Republicans expected to suffer losses successful the midterms, the management intends to suppress voting and pave the measurement to situation losses pinch much baseless claims of predetermination fraud.

More than 98% of U.S. predetermination jurisdictions already nutrient a insubstantial grounds for each vote, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission said past year. Those votes are mostly formed on machines that people a insubstantial record, aliases hand-marked but counted by physics readers. Election-security experts broadly support the existent operation of exertion and insubstantial ballots, which provides a voter-verified way for post-election audits.

Proponents of hand-marked, hand-counted ballots reason they destruct hacking concerns. But they airs different risks, said Alex Halderman, a University of Michigan computer-science professor, including counting mistakes and ballot-box stuffing.

“Changing to manus counting would beryllium chaotic,” he said, “and it mightiness facilitate cheating.”

White House spokesperson Davis Ingle characterized the reporting for this communicative arsenic selectively leaked and called it misinformation.

U.S. proviso concatenation rules springiness the commerce caput powers to restrict transactions pinch exertion companies from nations designated “foreign adversaries,” including China, Russia, and, specifically, the authorities of Venezuela’s erstwhile President Nicolas Maduro, who the U.S. subject unseated from powerfulness successful January.

A main attraction of Olsen’s efforts to find grounds of overseas hacking is the debunked mentation that Dominion machines were infected pinch codification controlled by Venezuelans to bargain the 2020 predetermination from Trump, the 2 sources said.

Repeated investigations and lawsuits since 2020 person produced nary grounds Dominion machines were hacked. In 2023, Fox News paid Dominion $787 cardinal successful a defamation lawsuit complete mendacious election-rigging claims.

In 2024, astatine slightest 27 states utilized Dominion machines, akin to the number successful 2020. Denver-based Dominion was purchased past October by Liberty Vote USA of Colorado. Liberty did not respond to a petition for comment.

Yet Trump continues to repetition the allegations, about precocious connected May 12 erstwhile he reposted a six-year-old clip of a big connected the far-right One America News web making the mendacious declare that Dominion machines deleted millions of votes.

In May, 2025, Olsen helped lead a national ngo that seized Dominion machines that Puerto Rico utilized successful its 2024 gubernatorial election. An study of the machines by cyber contractor Mojave Research Inc. produced later that summertime recovered immoderate known-about vulnerabilities, but no Venezuelan-origin codification aliases grounds of hacking.

Around the clip McNamara’s speech took spot pinch Commerce Department officials, Olsen’s squad took isolated immoderate of the Puerto Rico machines, believing that they would find components manufactured by countries designated arsenic overseas adversaries, the 2 sources said.

The squad recovered 1 spot packaged successful China by U.S. institution Intel. Such chips are not mostly considered a threat to U.S. nationalist security. Other chips were packaged successful Japan, South Korea and Malaysia, the 2 sources said. Olsen’s study connected the teardown, they said, described the chips arsenic ‘East Asian,’ which they judge was intended to obscure the nonaccomplishment to find immoderate information risks.

A September White House gathering convened to talk the machines included cyber experts astatine the National Security Council, 2 of the sources said. The group, which included Olsen’s team, discussed whether Dominion’s instrumentality contained traces of Venezuelan code, 1 of the sources said.

Following the meeting, a Commerce Department governmental appointee asked the department’s agency that assesses overseas national-security risks to tech proviso chains to see options to reside immoderate risks posed by voting machines, according to the 3 further sources.

The agency considered the matter but took nary action, 2 of the sources said.