NBC News: “Chinese Parts, Hidden Ownership, Growing Scrutiny: Inside America’s Biggest Maker of Voting Machines”

Chinese parts, hidden ownership, growing scrutiny: Inside America’s biggest maker of voting machines

Just off a bustling interstate near the border between Nebraska and Iowa, a 2,800-square-foot American flag flies over the squat office park that is home to Election Systems & Software LLC.

The nondescript name and building match the relative anonymity of the company, more commonly known as ES&S, which has operated in obscurity for years despite its central role in U.S. elections. Nearly half of all Americans who vote in the 2020 election will use one of its devices.

That’s starting to change. A new level of scrutiny of the election system, spurred by Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, has put ES&S in the political spotlight. The source of the nation’s voting machines has become an urgent issue because of real fears that hackers, whether foreign or domestic, might tamper with the mechanics of the voting system.

That has led to calls for ES&S and its competitors, Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems and Austin, Texas-based Hart Intercivic, to reveal details about their ownership and the origins of the parts, some of which come from China, that make up their machines.

But ES&S still faces questions about the company’s supply chain and the identities of its investors, although it has said it is entirely owned by Americans. And the results of its government penetration tests, in which authorized hackers try to break in so vulnerabilities can be identified and fixed, have yet to be revealed.

NBC News examined publicly available online shipping records for ES&S for the past five years and found that many parts, including electronics and tablets, were made in China and the Philippines, raising concerns about technology theft or sabotage.

During a tour of their facility, Burt told NBC’s Cynthia McFadden the overseas facilities are “very secure.” He said the final assembly of voting machines takes place in the U.S.

Chinese manufacturers can be forced to cooperate with requests from Chinese intelligence officials to share any information about the technology and therefore pose a risk for U.S. companies, NBC News analyst Frank Figliuzzi, a former assistant director of the FBI for counterintelligence, said. That could include intellectual property, such as source code, materials or blueprints. There is also the concern of machines shipped with undetected vulnerabilities or backdoors that could allow tampering.

In a letter to NBC News, ES&S said it takes “great care” with its foreign supply chain, including conducting risk assessments and making on-site visits to suppliers to make sure that components “are trusted, tested and free of malware.” It said that all of its facilities adhere to international standards, that it manufactures in compliance with all federal guidelines and that it follows cybersecurity best practices.

The secrecy of ES&S and its competitors has pushed politicians to seek information on security, oversight, finances, and ownership. This month, a group of Democratic politicians sent the private equity firms that own the major election vendors a letter asking them to disclose a range of such information, including ownership, finances, and research investments.

“The voting machine lobby, led by the biggest company, ES&S, believes they are above the law,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., a member of the Intelligence Committee who co-signed the letter. “They have not had anybody hold them accountable even on the most basic matters.”

ES&S Chief Executive Tom Burt dismissed the criticism as inevitable and impossible to answer, but he called for greater oversight of the national election process.

“There are going to be people who have opinions from now until eternity about the security of the equipment, the bias of those companies who are producing the equipment, the bias of the election administrators who are conducting the election,” Burt said in an interview. “I can’t do anything to affect those people’s opinions.”

“What the American people need is a system that can be audited, and then those audits have to happen and be demonstrated to the American public,” Burt said. “That’s what will cut through the noise.”

ES&S Chief Executive Tom Burt’s statement is curious given their silence on the forensic audit in Maricopa County, AZ.

In June, Burt wrote an op-ed asking Congress for more regulation, which would include requirements for paper backups of individual votes, mandatory post-election audits, and more resources for the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to speed improvements.

So, where is Burt’s voice now? We know that Dominion Voting Systems is suing media companies and individuals who questioned the role of the machines in the November election results. If the voting machine companies are so confident about the security of their machines, why not allow randomly selected machines across America to be opened up and examined?

And finally, why has the dishonest media that was so concerned about the voting machines after Trump won suddenly lost all curiosity about the security of the voting machines post-2020 election?