Trump Claims US Election Infrastructure Vulnerable to Foreign Adversaries

US President Donald Trump on Thursday (local time) claimed that Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and non-state actors have the capability to compromise the country’s election infrastructure, citing newly declassified intelligence assessments while renewing his criticism of electronic voting machines and ballot-counting systems.

In a national address on election integrity, Trump said the third batch of documents released by his administration showed that US authorities had been aware of vulnerabilities in the country’s election infrastructure for years.

“Yet concealing China’s meddling was only the beginning. The third set of documents we are releasing proves that for many years, Americans were blatantly lied to about the security of our election infrastructure, including electronic voting machines and ballot-counting systems. They are vulnerable, and they are easily compromised,” Trump said.

Citing a US Intelligence Community assessment, Trump claimed that US adversaries, including Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, as well as non-state groups, possess the capability to compromise US election infrastructure.

He further said the assessment identified centralised election-related data repositories, including voter registration databases, pollbooks and official election websites, as particularly vulnerable to exploitation. According to the assessment, adversaries could potentially use access to such systems to disrupt election processes.

Describing the issue as “a cyber threat aimed at the very heart of our democracy,” Trump said the administration was releasing intelligence findings covering the period from January 2020 to June 2026.

The US President also claimed that the newly declassified documents included CIA reporting on an alleged plot by the Venezuelan government to digitally manipulate election results.

“Today, we are releasing documents that show the CIA obtained reporting of a specific plot by the Maduro regime in Venezuela to do exactly that—conspiring to digitally rig their own country’s elections in 2020,” Trump said.

According to Trump, the intelligence described methods allegedly developed to digitally alter vote totals in ways that could evade detection, including through audits.

He said the intelligence highlighted the need for urgent measures to ensure that US election systems could not be hacked or compromised.

The White House said the declassified intelligence community assessments and related reports were released to show that the US government had long been aware of vulnerabilities in electronic voting machines, ballot-counting systems and centralised election-related databases, including voter registration databases, pollbooks and official election websites.

The documents cover the period from January 2020 through June 2026.