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US spy chief’s office investigated voting machines in Puerto Rico
| USA | economy

US spy chief’s office investigated voting machines in Puerto Rico

#ODNI #Puerto Rico #Voting Machines #Dominion Voting Systems #Election Integrity #Cybersecurity #Primary Elections

📌 Key Takeaways

  • The ODNI investigated discrepancies between machine tallies and paper ballots in Puerto Rico’s June primaries.
  • Federal intelligence involvement was triggered by concerns over potential election interference and technical security.
  • Investigators focused on software errors within Dominion Voting Systems hardware used during the island's local elections.
  • The probe aims to restore public confidence and secure electoral infrastructure ahead of future federal and local contests.

📖 Full Retelling

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) conducted an investigation into irregularities involving Dominion Voting Systems machines during Puerto Rico’s primary elections held last June to ensure the integrity of democratic processes on the island. The probe was launched after significant discrepancies were reported between the digital tally of the machines and the physical paper ballots, raising concerns among local officials and federal security agencies about potential foreign interference or technical vulnerabilities. While Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory and not a state, the security of its electoral infrastructure remains a high priority for Washington’s intelligence community due to the precedent it sets for broader federal elections. Following the discovery of the anomalies, the Puerto Rico State Elections Commission (CEE) collaborated with federal experts to determine whether the glitches were the result of a coordinated cyberattack or internal software malfunctions. The ODNI’s involvement underscores the heightened sensitivity surrounding election security in the United States, particularly as intelligence officials monitor threats from adversarial nations seeking to undermine public trust in democratic institutions. Preliminary findings suggested that the issues originated from a software bug related to how the machines processed specific ballot formats, though the sheer scale of the mismatch necessitated a thorough review by the nation’s top intelligence office. Political leaders in Puerto Rico have utilized the findings to demand more robust oversight and a potential overhaul of the island's voting technology before the general elections. This investigation fits into a larger pattern of federal scrutiny over voting hardware, as the ODNI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) continue to harden defenses against both physical and digital tampering. The outcome of the Puerto Rican inquiry serves as a critical case study for election administrators across the mainland United States, highlighting the necessity of paper audit trails and the importance of rapid federal-local communication when technological failures occur during an active vote.

🏷️ Themes

Election Security, National Intelligence, Technology

📚 Related People & Topics

Director of National Intelligence

Director of National Intelligence

US Cabinet-level government official

# Director of National Intelligence (DNI) The **Director of National Intelligence (DNI)** is a high-level United States government official serving as the cabinet-level head of the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC). Established under the *Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004*, th...

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Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico

U.S. territory in the Caribbean

Puerto Rico (abbreviated PR), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, is a self-governing Caribbean archipelago and island organized as an unincorporated territory of the United States under the designation of commonwealth. It is located about 1,000 miles (1,600 km) southeast of Miami, Florida, ...

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Voting machine

Machine used to vote in elections

A voting machine is a machine used to record votes in an election without paper. The first voting machines were mechanical but it is increasingly more common to use electronic voting machines. Traditionally, a voting machine has been defined by its mechanism, and whether the system tallies votes at...

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Dominion Voting Systems

Dominion Voting Systems

Electronic voting systems company

Dominion Voting Systems Corporation was a North American company that produced and sold electronic voting hardware and software, including voting machines and tabulators, in Canada and the United States. In 2025, Scott Leiendecker purchased the company under a new company called Liberty Vote.

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🔗 Entity Intersection Graph

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📄 Original Source Content
try{ var _=i o; . if(!_||_&&typeof _==="object"&&_.expiry As Claude disrupts stock market, Anthropic researcher warns ’world is in peril’ Gold, silver prices rise amid U.S.-Iran tensions, blowout January payrolls data Dow halts three-day win streak as blowout jobs data curbs rate cut bets Citi pushes back Fed rate cuts to May after blowout January jobs report (South Africa Philippines Nigeria) US spy chief’s office investigated voting machines in Puerto Rico World Published 02/10/2026, 07:36 PM Updated 02/10/2026, 09:31 PM US spy chief’s office investigated voting machines in Puerto Rico 0 By Phil Stewart, Erin Banco and Jonathan Landay WASHINGTON, Feb 4 - A team working for President Donald Trump’s spy chief, Tulsi Gabbard, last spring led an investigation into Puerto Rico’s voting machines, said Gabbard’s office and three sources familiar with the previously unreported events. The sources said the goal was to work with the FBI to investigate claims that Venezuela had hacked voting machines in Puerto Rico, but added the probe did not produce any clear evidence of Venezuelan interference in the U.S. territory’s elections. Reuters first reported the investigation. Gabbard’s office, in a statement to Reuters, confirmed the May investigation but denied a link to Venezuela, saying its focus was on vulnerabilities in the island’s electronic voting systems. Her team took an unspecified number of Puerto Rico’s voting machines and additional copies of data from the machines as part of its investigation, a spokesperson for Gabbard’s Office of the Director of National Intelligence said. Her office said the taking of voting machines and data was "standard practice in forensics analysis." Noting similar voting infrastructure elsewhere in the United States, it added: "ODNI found extremely concerning cyber security and operational deployment practices that pose a significant risk to U.S. elections." Jorge Rivera Rueda, head of Puerto Rico’s State Elections Commission, said he cou...

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