The Strange Dispute Between NBC News and DHS and the Elections Community Over Election Hacking

A few weeks ago, NBC News issued a story about election hacking which it presented as an exclusive. It drew pushback from DHS, and from many in the elections community, saying that the information was not new, and some of it was incorrect.

Yesterday NBC followed up with another story, this one giving much more specific details:

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.

This one prompted an even stronger reaction from DHS, as the start of this thread shows:

And noted election expert David Becker wrote:

 

It is hard to know what is going on here. My experience is that NBC News is one of the best in the business, and they take very seriously the need to get things right. But the reactions to this line of investigation is extraordinary, not just from DHS, but from other election officials and election observers.

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