A White House official in the Trump administration attempted to eliminate voting machines utilized across more than half of American states by exploring whether federal agencies could classify their parts as threats to national security, according to two individuals with firsthand knowledge of the situation.
Kurt Olsen, a White House adviser and attorney whom Trump assigned to substantiate widely discredited theories about election manipulation, spearheaded the initiative to target machines manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems. The proposal developed as Olsen and colleagues brainstormed methods for federal authorities to assume control of elections from state governments, an approach Trump has publicly discussed.
According to sources, Olsen advocated for a nationwide system requiring hand-counted paper ballots, which Trump has frequently demanded but election security specialists warn could be less precise and more vulnerable than existing machine systems with verifiable paper records used by nearly all municipalities and states.
The machine exclusion plan, being reported for the first time, advanced sufficiently that Commerce Department officials began examining possible justifications for implementation in September, three additional sources revealed. However, the initiative ultimately failed because Olsen and collaborating administration staff members could not supply evidence supporting such action, two sources indicated.
This incident represents part of an extensive Trump administration effort to infringe upon state and local governments’ constitutional authority to conduct elections – a power granted to prevent executive branch power seizures. Olsen is collaborating with the nation’s leading intelligence and law enforcement organizations to pursue vote manipulation allegations.
A previous investigation found that administration officials and investigators across at least eight states have requested confidential documents, demanded voting equipment access, and reopened voter fraud cases that courts and bipartisan examinations have dismissed. Trump and Republican supporters are also advancing unprecedented strategies to redraw electoral districts ahead of schedule to gain advantages in November’s midterm congressional races.
The two sources stated that Olsen, whom Democratic senators are attempting to remove from his position, intended to invalidate machines before the midterm elections.
Paul McNamara, a senior aide to Trump’s intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard, and Brian Sikma, a special assistant working on Trump’s Domestic Policy Council, participated in the discussions, one source with direct knowledge reported. Olsen has maintained close cooperation with Gabbard’s Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
During early summer, McNamara requested Commerce Department officials to evaluate potentially designating chips and software as national security risks, the two sources said.
McNamara led an intelligence office task force that collaborated with administration officials to examine voting machine vulnerabilities. The sources reported McNamara discussed the matter with senior Commerce Department officials under Secretary Howard Lutnick.
Whether Lutnick participated in or knew about these conversations could not be determined.
A Commerce Department representative stated Lutnick never met with McNamara or discussed election integrity matters and did not “engage in the topic at all.” The spokesperson refused to comment on potential involvement by Lutnick’s office or other officials.
Olsen, McNamara and Sikma did not respond to interview requests.
Democrats and election integrity specialists express concern that, with Republicans anticipated to experience midterm losses, the administration seeks to suppress voting and establish groundwork for challenging defeats with additional unfounded fraud claims.
The U.S. Election Assistance Commission reported last year that over 98% of American election jurisdictions already generate paper records for every vote. These votes are primarily cast on machines producing paper records or hand-marked but electronically counted ballots. Election security experts widely endorse the current technology and paper ballot combination, which creates voter-verified trails for post-election reviews.
Hand-marked, hand-counted ballot supporters argue they eliminate hacking risks. However, they present different dangers, explained Alex Halderman, a University of Michigan computer science professor, including counting errors and ballot box tampering.
“Changing to hand counting would be chaotic,” he said, “and it might facilitate cheating.”
White House spokesman Davis Ingle described the story’s reporting as selectively leaked and labeled it misinformation.
Olivia Coleman, a spokesperson for Gabbard’s agency, claimed the story contained “inaccuracies and false descriptions” of the agency’s election security work, without providing specifics.
U.S. supply chain regulations grant the commerce secretary authority to limit transactions with technology companies from designated “foreign adversary” nations, including China, Russia, and specifically Venezuela’s former President Nicolas Maduro’s government, whom the U.S. military removed from power in January.
Olsen’s efforts to discover foreign hacking evidence primarily focused on the disproven theory that Venezuelan-controlled code infected machines to steal the 2020 election from Trump, the two sources said.
Numerous investigations and legal proceedings since 2020 have produced no evidence of machine hacking. In 2023, Fox News paid the company $787 million in a defamation settlement over false election rigging allegations.
At least 27 states utilized the machines in 2024, comparable to 2020 numbers. Denver-based Dominion was acquired last October by Liberty Vote USA of Colorado.
Trump continues repeating these allegations, most recently on May 12 when he reposted a six-year-old clip featuring a far-right One America News network host making the false claim that millions of votes were deleted.
In May 2025, Olsen helped direct a federal operation that confiscated machines Puerto Rico used in its 2024 gubernatorial election. Analysis by cyber contractor Mojave Research Inc. later that summer discovered some known vulnerabilities but no Venezuelan-origin code or hacking evidence.
Around the time of McNamara’s Commerce Department discussions, Olsen’s team disassembled some Puerto Rico machines, expecting to find components manufactured by foreign adversary countries, the two sources said.
The team discovered one chip packaged in China by U.S. company Intel. Such chips typically pose no U.S. national security threat. Other chips were packaged in Japan, South Korea and Malaysia, the sources said. Olsen’s teardown report described the chips as ‘East Asian,’ which sources believe was intended to hide the failure to identify security risks.
A September White House meeting to discuss the machines included National Security Council cyber experts, two sources said. The group, including Olsen’s team, discussed whether the equipment contained traces of Venezuelan code, one source said.
Following the meeting, a Commerce Department political appointee asked the department’s office assessing foreign national security risks to technology supply chains to consider options addressing potential voting machine risks, according to three additional sources.
The office examined the matter but took no action, two sources said.
