COMMITTEE SENSITIVE—RUSSIA INVESTIGATION ONLY
- (U) Ms. Manfra said, "The owners of the systems within those 21 states have been notified." Senator King then asked, "How about the election officials in those states?" Ms. Manfra responded, "We are working to ensure that election officials as well understand. I'll have to get back to you on whether all 21 states ….[crosstalk]."[1]
- (U) Given Ms. Manfra's testimony and the fact that some election officials did not get a notification directly to their offices, election officials in many states assumed they were not one of the 21; some even issued press releases to that effect.[2]
(U) The disconnect between DHS and state election officials became clear during Committee interactions with the states throughout 2017. In many eases, DHS had notified state officials responsible for network security, but not election officials, of the threat. Further, the IT professionals contacted did not have the context to know that this threat was any different than any other scanning or hacking attempt, and they had not thought it necessary to elevate the warning to election officials.
(U) After the hearing, and in part to respond to confusion in the states, DHS held a conference call with representatives from 50 states in September 2017. In that call, DHS said they would contact affected states directly. State 8 state election officials noted that the call became "somewhat antagonistic."[3] State 17 officials reported that the phone call "just showed how little DHS knew about elections."[4] Several officials argued that all 50 states should be notified of who had been hacked. DHS followed up with one-to-one phone calls to states over the next several days.
- (U) Officials from some states reported being shocked that they were in fact one of the states, and further surprised that their states had supposedly been notified.
- (U) Most state officials found the conference calls lacking in information and were left wondering exactly what the threat might be. Several states said the DHS representatives could not answer any specific questions effectively.
(U) Following this series of difficult engagements, DHS set about trying to build relationships with the states, but it faced a significant trust deficit. Early follow-up interactions between state election officials and DHS were rocky. States reported that DHS seemed to have little to no familiarity with elections. For example, State 6 said that the DHS representatives they were assigned seemed to know nothing about State 6, and, when pressed, they admitted they were "just reading the spreadsheet in front of [them]."[5] State 8 reported that "we are spending
- ↑ (U) Ibid., pp. 62-63.
- ↑ (U) State 8 said they put out a press release because DHS had said publicly that they had notified the 21 states, and "if you were one of the 21, you would know."
- ↑ (U) Memorandum for the Record, SSCI Staff, Conference Call with [State 8], February 2, 2018.
- ↑ (U) Memorandum for the Record, SSCI Staff, Conference Call with [State 17], January 25, 2018.
- ↑ (U) Memorandum for the Record, SSCI Staff, Conference Call with [State 6], November 17, 2017.
51
COMMITTEE SENSITIVE—RUSSIA INVESTIGATION ONLY
