The U.S. intelligence community is launching a first-ever review of potential foreign influence in an election. Although DHS and other federal agencies have said they saw no sign of such interference, the step was mandated by a September executive order. “The Director of National Intelligence will provide an assessment of any foreign interference in our elections within 45 days,” Kellie Wade, a spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, told ABC News in a story late last week. “This assessment will be fully coordinated within the intelligence community, and will be provided to the President and to relevant Cabinet members.”
But others want yet more safeguards. “I am calling on you to conduct comprehensive forensic examinations of voting machines in states where robust post-election audits are not possible because there is no paper trail,” Sen. Ron Wyden wrote in a letter to DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. Raffi Krikorian, chief technology officer for the DNC, said Democrats also saw no sign of election interference, but, “to be clear, not detecting any interference does not guarantee that it did not happen,” he tweeted. “@TheDemocrats tech team will remain vigilant.”
— DHS’ BIGGEST FEAR: Nielsen has said one of the most worrisome post-election scenarios was the possibility that foreign nations would portray the midterm results as invalid, something President Donald Trump and GOP allies are now doing. Trump is suggesting corruption in states including Arizona, Florida and Georgia. Arizona’s Republican secretary of state is countering the attacks, even as national GOP leaders are exasperated by GOP Senate candidate Martha McSally for not aggressively pursuing the narrative. “People spent all this time trying to defend elections from hackers, and in reality the threat was always politicians trying to delegitimize the count,” tweeted Matt Tait, a cybersecurity fellow at the University of Texas at Austin.
Full Article: Reviewing midterms for signs of interference – POLITICO.