• Home
  • Independent Voter News
  • Quizzes
  • Election Dissection
  • Sections
  • Events
  • Directory
  • About Us
  • Glossary
  • Opinion
  • Campaign Finance
  • Redistricting
  • Civic Ed
  • Voting
  • Fact Check
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. Voting>
  3. election security>

Federal investigators: No evidence North Carolina voter equipment was hacked

Bill Theobald
January 02, 2020
Voter in Durham, N.C.

Inaccuracies within the Durham County, N.C., voter files on Election Day 2016 prompted a federal investigation. Above, Willa Domina, 6, watches her mother, Emily Katz, vote in Durham.

Sara D. Davis/Getty Images

Investigators with the Department of Homeland Security could not "conclusively identify" any attempt by outsiders to hack into North Carolina election equipment that malfunctioned in 2016.

Durham County and state election officials asked the DHS to investigate after some pollbooks (laptops running software used to maintain voter files) inaccurately listed voters as already having voted, identified registered voters as not registered, and prompted election workers to ask for identification, which is not required under state law.

Further concern was raised because VR Systems, the Florida company that made the electronic pollbooks, was the target of Russian hackers.

Special counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russian interference in the 2016 election said an unnamed company had its computer system hacked and the information obtained was used to send out fake emails to some of its Florida customers. The company has since been identified as VR Systems, but its leaders have denied VR computer systems were compromised.


Durham County officials were able to switch to paper registration ledgers to check people in at the polls and then state election officials seized the laptops involved.

The highly redacted DHS report released Monday by its Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency states that 24 laptops and 21 USB drives were examined at a lab from June 11 to Oct. 16. Investigators said their scans of the pollbooks were "unable to identify any artifacts suggesting the presence of malware or unauthorized remote access." The same was true for the USB drives, according to the report.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

While not finding any evidence of a successful breach or outside manipulation of voter registration data, investigators did make recommendations for cybersecurity improvements in the county's election processes.

Most of the details of those recommendations are blacked out in the report.

From Your Site Articles
  • Swing states build protections around 2020 elections - The Fulcrum ›
  • The 13 states where election security matters most - The Fulcrum ›
  • New election machines in North Carolina may not be secure - The ... ›
  • Lawsuit challenges new North Carolina voting machines - The Fulcrum ›
Related Articles Around the Web
  • Election hacking: NC officials won't approve new voting machines ... ›
  • Federal Government To Check North Carolina Election Equipment ... ›
  • North Carolina State Board of Elections ›
election security
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Follow
Contributors

Imperfection and perseverance

Jeff Clements

We’ve expanded the Supreme Court before. It’s time to do so again.

Anushka Sarkar

The ‘great replacement theory’ is nonsense

Debilyn Molineaux

Inflation will hit health of low-income Americans hardest

Robert Pearl

Caught in a draft

Lawrence Goldstone

Congress shows signs of bipartisanship with retirement benefits bill

Mario H. Lopez
latest News

Your Take: Inspiring sports memories

Our Staff
20 May

GOP split: Far right gains ground in East, while losing out West

Steven Rosenfeld
20 May

Podcast: Women in and out of politics

Our Staff
20 May

Democratic senators seek $20 billion in election funding

Reya Kumar
19 May

Podcast: A conversation with former Rep. Carlos Curbelo

Our Staff
19 May

Elections require more consistent federal funding, per report

Reya Kumar
18 May
Videos

Video: Helping loved ones divided by politics

Our Staff

Video: What happened in Virginia?

Our Staff

Video: Infrastructure past, present, and future

Our Staff

Video: Beyond the headlines SCOTUS 2021 - 2022

Our Staff

Video: Should we even have a debt limit

Our Staff

Video: #ListenFirstFriday Yap Politics

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: Did economists move the Democrats to the right?

Our Staff
02 May

Podcast: The future of depolarization

Our Staff
11 February

Podcast: Sore losers are bad for democracy

Our Staff
20 January

Deconstructed Podcast from IVN

Our Staff
08 November 2021
Recommended
Your Take: Inspiring sports memories

Your Take: Inspiring sports memories

Your Take
Doug Mastriano

GOP split: Far right gains ground in East, while losing out West

Leveraging big ideas
Podcast: Women in and out of politics

Podcast: Women in and out of politics

Leadership
Statue of William Henry Seward

Imperfection and perseverance

Civic Ed
​Sen. Amy Klobuchar

Democratic senators seek $20 billion in election funding

Government
Podcast: A conversation with former Rep. Carlos Curbelo

Podcast: A conversation with former Rep. Carlos Curbelo

Leadership