The Russian government successfully hacked into the voter rolls in a small number of US states during the run-up to the 2016 election, it was revealed on Wednesday.
Jeanette Manfra, the Homeland Security official tasked with securing the system from hackers, told NBC News that a total of 21 states were targeted and “an exceptionally small number of them were actually successfully penetrated.”
Jeh Johnson, who headed the department in 2016, said “it’s incumbent upon states and the Feds to do something about it before our democracy is attacked again.”
NBC reported in September 2016 that more than 20 states were targeted by Russians.
Wednesday’s admission by Manfra, who is the head of cybersecurity at DHS, was the first admission that voting rolls had actually been penetrated.
US officials told NBC that there is no evidence that any of the rolls were altered.
It was not clear which state rolls had been hacked into.