Cynthia McFadden, William M. Arkin, Kevin Monahan, and Ken Dilanian report:
The U.S. intelligence community developed substantial evidence that state websites or voter registration systems in seven states were compromised by Russian-backed covert operatives prior to the 2016 election — but never told the states involved, according to multiple U.S. officials.
Top-secret intelligence requested by President Barack Obama in his last weeks in office identified seven states where analysts — synthesizing months of work — had reason to believe Russian operatives had compromised state websites or databases.
Three senior intelligence officials told NBC News that the intelligence community believed the states as of January 2017 were Alaska, Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Texas and Wisconsin.
Read more on NBC, as their coverage goes beyond just these seven states, and they are reporting on a very concerning issue, even if, as they report, “All state and federal officials who spoke to NBC News agree that no votes were changed and no voters were taken off the rolls.” At least for those seven states. But what about the others? So far, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of evidence of successful penetration much less data tampering, but was 2016 just a test run for something more in 2018?