According to the agency responsible for protecting America's elections from hacking attacks, Russians had successfully infiltrated voter registration rolls in several U.S. states before the 2016 presidential election.
In particular, according to the exclusive interview with NBC News, Jeanette Manfra, who is the head of cybersecurity at the Department of Homeland Security, said that she could not talk about this information publicly, but in 2016 it was observed that 21 states were targeted and a small number of them were identified by hackers. Also, Jeh Johnson, who was DHS secretary during the Russian invasions, said that 2016 was a “wakeup call” and now the protection against attacks against the U.S. is up to the federal government. In a new report by NBC News, 79% of respondents said they were concerned about the U.S. voting system because it appeared vulnerable to attacks by hackers. In January 2017, Johnson said that almost all states had not taken any security measures for possible future attacks. On the other hand, Jeanette Manfra stated that she did not agree with Johnson's views, as in her opinion all states took the issue of cybersecurity seriously.
The issue has been taken seriously since 2016, when the Illinois Board of Elections acknowledged that voter data had been compromised and that hackers had been in the system for weeks, downloading data without tampering with files. Many of the states complained that the federal government had not provided details of the specific threat, saying the information was classified and government officials had no clear answers. Manfra said all the information was being processed today.
Although the issue is being considered, several states have not received assistance from the federal government, although Manfra said it will come to all of them soon.
