A Political Operative on What the Russians Really Did When Targeting the Election Data in 21 States

A friend who is a political operative and occasionally surfs state election data tells me that after reviewing news accounts of what the Russians were alleged to have done in their "hacking" of state election data, it doesn't appear to him to be any different than what he does---legally.

He tells me that many states have their voter registration rolls online along with contributions made by donors to different candidates. He regularly surfs this data for various reasons including to identify big dollar contributors. He suspects the Russians, or whoever, were doing pretty much the same.

Consider this from The Wall Street Journal  under the scare headline Russia Targeted 21 States for Election Hacking, Official Says.

Officials said that most of the cyber-activities consisted of scans for known vulnerabilities in election systems unrelated to vote-tallying—activity “analogous to somebody walking down the street and looking to see if you are home,” said Samuel Liles, acting director of the Cyber Division in the Office of Intelligence and Analysis at DHS.

And this:

 Much of the data targeted was voter-registration information.

Again, according to my acquaintance, voter registration information is readily available for those who want to look.

The Russians, if it was the Russians, may have gone beyond this but there is a strong hint that this alleged "hack" is being distorted and  blown way out of proportion like the rest of the Russian election-related hacking narrative,

 - RW