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Government Unfiltered

Senate Russia Report Vol. 1: Russian Efforts Against Election Infrastructure

Government Unfiltered

Dan Williams

Politics, News, Government

4.8993 Ratings

🗓️ 15 March 2021

⏱️ 130 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This is a reading of the first volume from the five-volume Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence United States Senate on Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election. This document focuses specifically on Russian efforts to attack our election infrastructure. It explains security concerns with various U.S. voting machines, the ability for DHS to provide support to the states, and scenarios for potential disruption to our elections.

These episodes are created based on the value-for-value model. Please support the podcast at governmentunfiltered.com by clicking the donate button for a one-time donation or by going to patreon.com/timberlanemedia to support monthly. If you'd like to donate anonymously, you can go to glow.fm/insider to donate on either a one-time or recurring basis. Follow the show on Twitter @GovUnfiltered or on Facebook at facebook.com/governmentunfiltered.

I. INTRODUCTION (2:28)

II. FINDINGS (3:13)

III. THE ARC OF RUSSIAN ACTIVITIES (7:52)

IV. ELEMENTS OF RUSSIAN ACTIVITIES (14:17)

A. Targeting Activity (14:21)

B. Russian Access to Election Infrastructure (31:26)

1. Russian Access to Election Infrastructure: Illinois (32:16)

2. Russian Access to Election Infrastructure: State 2 (35:46)

C. Russian Efforts to Research U.S. Voting Systems, Processes, and Other Elements of Voting Infrastructure (40:32)

D. Russian Activity Directed at Voting Machine Companies (40:50)

E. Russian Efforts to Observe Polling Places (41:23)

F. [Redacted] (42:13)

G. Russian Activity Possibly Related to a Misinformation Campaign on Voter [Redacted] (42:19)

H. Two Unexplained Events (43:10)

1. Cyber Activity in State 22 (43:13)

2. Cyber Activity in State 4 (43:20)

V. RUSSIAN INTENTIONS (45:54)

Chaos on Election Day: Three Scenarios (49:25)

VI. NO EVIDENCE OF CHANGED VOTES OR MANIPULATED VOTE TALLIES (50:54)

VII. SECURITY OF VOTING MACHINES (56:23)

Direct-Recording Electronic (DRE) Voting Machine Vulnerabilities (1:00:45)

Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (1:06:32)

VIII. THE ROLE OF DHS AND INTERACTIONS WITH THE STATES (1:09:37)

A. DHS's Evolution (1:10:17)

Critical Infrastructure Designation (1:15:21)

B. The View From the States (1:18:17)

C. Taking Advantage of DHS Resources (1:25:53)

IX. RECOMMENDATIONS (1:30:30)

MINORITY VIEWS OF SENATOR WYDEN (1:48:19)

ADDITIONAL VIEWS OF SENATORS HARRIS, BENNET, AND HEINRICH (2:02:54)

 

Presented by Timberlane Media

Support via PayPal: donate@timberlanemedia.com

Music by Lee Rosevere

 

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Transcript

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0:00.0

This is government unfiltered. I'm Dan Williams.

0:07.0

The report of the Select Committee on Intelligence, United States Senate on Russian

0:11.9

Active Measures campaigns and interference in the 2016 U.S. election

0:16.2

is a five-volume bipartisan report that documents the findings, conclusions, and recommendations from the Senate Intelligence Committee.

0:25.0

The 1313 page report went to publication as Senate Report 116-290 on November 10, 2020.

0:35.0

This is a reading of the first volume from the 5-volume report,

0:39.0

and it focuses specifically on Russian efforts to attack our election infrastructure.

0:44.8

One of my biggest takeaways is that there is bipartisan support for making sure all voting

0:49.7

machines have a paper trail.

0:52.2

You may be surprised to learn that some don't, and only a few

0:55.3

states have mandatory statewide audits of their votes. Where there are some

1:00.1

disagreements on party lines as to how much federal involvement there should be at a state level.

1:05.0

But as you'll hear, there are a lot of common sense voting reforms that may have prevented some of the issues we heard about following the 2020 elections, and this was initially

1:15.0

released in July of 2019.

1:18.0

So had our lawmakers moved quickly to enact the recommendations they offered. Who knows what issues they could have helped to avoid.

1:26.1

This reading is made possible by those of you who help support and produce this show.

1:30.8

At the end of this episode, I'll be thanking everyone who has been supporting this

1:34.0

podcast. You can support the show by going to my Patreon page at insider friends

1:39.3

dot com via PayPal at donate at timber timberlane Media.com, or by going to government unfiltered.com and clicking support.

1:49.7

My goal through this

1:55.0

episode is to help make public documents more accessible through audio. Now, on to the document for this episode.

2:02.0

Russian Active Measures Campaign Russian active measures campaigns and interference in the 2016 U.S. election.

...

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