President Trump Says China Hacked Voter Data in MD, 17 Other States
National News - President Donald Trump gave a primetime address from the White House Thursday night. In that speech, he announced the release of newly declassified intelligence documents. The documents focus on foreign threats to American elections.
According to Trump, the documents were gathered by the White House Government Transparency Task Force. The task force worked alongside the President's Intelligence Advisory Board and top intelligence officials.
Trump said agency leaders reviewed and confirmed the findings before they were made public.
The biggest claim involves China. Trump said the Chinese government illegally obtained more than 220 million American voter registration files. The alleged breach reportedly happened sometime between 2020 and 2024.
Task force materials list 18 states plus Washington, D.C., where voter rolls were specifically compromised, according to the documents. Maryland is on that list, along with Florida, Georgia, Ohio, New York and others. Congressional and state leaders in those states are being notified of the vulnerabilities, the task force said.
The stolen data reportedly included names, addresses, phone numbers, military status, party registration and voting history, according to White House officials. Officials say the information was bought, stolen or hacked. Some of this type of data is already sold in limited form by many states as public record.
A separate Department of Homeland Security document addresses non-citizen voting. It says DHS reviewed public voter files from four states that haven't used its SAVE verification system. That review reportedly found more than 250,000 non-citizens illegally registered to vote in those four states alone.
DHS named California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Nevada in the review, according to the document. The agency says the investigation is expanding to additional states. DHS also says it helped 25 states process more than 68 million voter records this year to check for ineligible registrants.
Other declassified pages, dated July 10, describe older material tied to alleged Chinese planning around the 2020 election. These describe strategies to use social media and hidden influencers to widen divisions over topics like racial tension, immigration and gun policy, according to the records. The goal, the documents state, was to weaken public trust in the U.S. government.
The White House says the point isn't to relitigate old elections, but to fix problems before November's midterms.
Trump used the speech to renew his call for voter ID laws and citizenship checks at the polls. He connected the announcement to the SAVE America Act, currently before the Senate.
The full document set has been posted to the White House website.
