White House adviser Kurt Olsen, a lawyer tasked by Donald Trump with pursuing widely debunked election-rigging conspiracy theories, spearheaded a failed initiative to ban voting machines used in over half of U.S. states. The plan involved proposing the Commerce Department declare Dominion Voting Systems components national-security risks, according to two individuals with direct knowledge of the matter.
Olsen sought a national system of hand-counted paper ballots, a frequent demand from Trump. Election-security experts warn that such a system would be less accurate and potentially riskier than the current combination of machines with auditable paper trails, used by nearly all cities and states.
The effort advanced to the point where Commerce Department officials began exploring legal grounds for its execution in September, three additional sources confirmed. However, it ultimately collapsed because Olsen and other administration staffers failed to provide sufficient evidence to justify the measure, two sources revealed.
This episode is part of a broader Trump administration campaign to infringe upon state and local governments' constitutional authority to manage elections. Olsen continues to collaborate with top intelligence and law enforcement agencies to investigate claims of voting rigging.
A Reuters investigation earlier this month uncovered that administration officials and investigators in at least eight states have sought confidential records, pressed for access to voting equipment, and re-examined voter-fraud cases that courts and bipartisan reviews had already dismissed.
Trump and his Republican allies are also pursuing unprecedented plans to redraw election districts earlier than usual to secure advantages in the November midterm congressional elections.
Olsen, whose removal from his post is being sought by Democratic senators, aimed to invalidate Dominion voting machines before the midterms, the two sources said. Others involved included Paul McNamara, a senior aide to Trump's spy chief, and Brian Sikma, a special assistant to Trump on his Domestic Policy Council.
Early last summer, McNamara reportedly asked Commerce Department officials to consider designating Dominion chips and software as a national security risk. McNamara led an ODNI task force investigating vulnerabilities in voting machines. Reuters could not ascertain whether Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was involved in or aware of these discussions. A Commerce Department spokesperson stated that Lutnick never met or discussed election-integrity issues with McNamara.
More than 98% of U.S. election jurisdictions already produce a paper record for every vote, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission reported last year. Election-security experts generally endorse the current combination of technology and paper ballots, which provides a voter-verified trail for post-election audits.
Proponents of hand-marked, hand-counted ballots argue they eliminate hacking concerns. However, they introduce different risks, according to Alex Halderman, a University of Michigan computer science professor, including counting errors and ballot box stuffing. "Changing to hand counting would be chaotic," he said, "and it might facilitate cheating."
White House spokesman Davis Ingle characterized the reporting as selectively leaked and labeled it misinformation. Olivia Coleman, a spokesperson for Gabbard's agency, claimed the story contained "inaccuracies and false descriptions" of the agency’s election security work.
A primary focus of Olsen’s efforts to find evidence of foreign hacking centered on the debunked theory that Dominion machines were infected with code controlled by Venezuelans to steal the 2020 election. Repeated investigations and lawsuits since 2020 have yielded no evidence that Dominion machines were hacked. In 2023, Fox News paid Dominion $787 million in a defamation case concerning false election-rigging claims.
In 2024, at least 27 states used Dominion machines. Denver-based Dominion was acquired last October by Liberty Vote USA of Colorado. Trump continues to repeat the allegations, most recently on May 12, when he reposted a clip making the false claim that Dominion machines deleted millions of votes.
In May 2025, Olsen helped lead a federal mission that seized Dominion machines used in Puerto Rico's 2024 gubernatorial election. An analysis by cyber contractor Mojave Research Inc. found some known vulnerabilities, but no Venezuelan-origin code or evidence of hacking. Around the time of McNamara's conversation, Olsen's team disassembled some Puerto Rico machines, finding chips packaged in China by U.S. company Intel, Japan, South Korea, and Malaysia, but no security risks.
A September White House meeting convened to discuss the machines included cyber experts at the National Security Council. Following the meeting, a Commerce Department political appointee asked the department’s office that assesses foreign national-security risks to tech supply chains to consider options. The office considered the matter but ultimately took no action.
