The federal government has found no evidence that flaws in Dominion voting machines have ever been exploited, including in the 2020 election, according to the executive director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. CISA, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security, has notified election officials in more than a dozen states that use the machines of several vulnerabilities and mitigation measures that would aid in detection or prevention of an attempt to exploit those vulnerabilities. The move marks the first time CISA has run voting machine flaws through its vulnerability disclosure program, which since 2019 has examined and disclosed hundreds of vulnerabilities in commercial and industrial systems that have been identified by researchers around the world. (The program is aimed at helping companies and consumers better secure devices from breaches. The security of Dominion voting machines has become a flash point in the fraught politics of the 2020 election with supporters of former president Donald Trump claiming that the results were tainted by machines that were manipulated, while election officials — including Georgia’s Republican secretary of state and governor — insisted that there was no evidence of breaches or altered results.
National: How Influential Election Deniers Have Fueled a Fight to Control Elections | Alexandra Berzon/The New York Times
Key figures in the effort to subvert the 2020 presidential election have thrown their weight behind a slate of Republican candidates for secretary of state across the country, injecting specious theories about voting machines, foreign hacking and voter fraud into campaigns that will determine who controls elections in several battleground states. The America First slate comprises more than a dozen candidates who falsely claim the 2020 election was stolen from Donald J. Trump. It grew out of meetings held by a conspiracy-mongering QAnon leader and a Nevada politician, and has quietly gained support from influential people in the election denier movement — including Mike Lindell, the MyPillow founder, and Patrick Byrne, the former Overstock.com executive who has financed public forums that promote the candidates and theories about election vulnerabilities. Members of the slate have won party endorsements or are competitive candidates for the Republican nomination in several states, including three — Michigan, Arizona and Nevada — where a relatively small number of ballots have decided presidential victories. And in Pennsylvania, where the governor appoints the secretary of state, State Senator Doug Mastriano, who is aligned with the group, easily won his primary for governor last month. The candidates cast their races as a fight for the future of democracy, the best chance to reform a broken voting system — and to win elections.
Full Article: How Influential Election Deniers Have Fueled a Fight to Control Elections – The New York Times