Gabbard's ODNI confirmed it covertly obtained and tested Puerto Rico voting machines, drawing expert alarm over its authority

On February 4, 2026, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, under Director Tulsi Gabbard, confirmed to CNN and NBC News that it had obtained electronic voting machines from Puerto Rico and tested them for security vulnerabilities. ODNI has not disclosed exactly when this occurred beyond describing it as "last year." The U.S. Attorney in Puerto Rico, Homeland Security Investigations agents, and an FBI supervisory special agent facilitated what ODNI called a "voluntary" turnover of the voting hardware and software.

ODNI cited unspecified "publicly reported claims" of anomalies in Puerto Rico's voting systems and said it found "extremely concerning" cybersecurity and operational deployment practices -- including cellular modems that connected to networks outside the United States -- but provided no detailed evidence to support the characterization. Kevin Skoglund, chief technologist at Citizens for Better Elections, said ODNI had not "given any meaningful details" on its findings and noted that modems used to transmit encrypted vote totals are "not concerning on its own."

A former senior U.S. intelligence official who has worked on election security called the probe "well beyond what ODNI has the authority or expertise to do," calling it "amateur hour." David Becker, executive director of a nonpartisan election-administration organization, said the probe "appears intended to intimidate and denigrate election officials." Puerto Rico's nonvoting congressional representative, Pablo José Hernández, said there is "no evidence of foreign interference in Puerto Rico's elections" and that the administration has "failed to explain why Tulsi Gabbard's team was there in the first place."

The disclosure follows Gabbard's presence, at Trump's direction, at an FBI search of a Fulton County, Georgia election office in late January 2026 that seized ballots from the 2020 election, and comes as Trump has called to "nationalize" future elections and have the federal government "get involved" in states where he alleges a risk of fraud. Under the Constitution, state and territorial governments oversee elections, not the federal intelligence community.

Updates

2026-02-10 — Senators demanded ODNI brief the Senate on election security by Feb. 27 [3]

Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) sent a letter to Gabbard demanding ODNI immediately schedule an Intelligence Community briefing for all Senators on election security, citing "recent confirmation that ODNI seized voting machines and other election data in Puerto Rico" alongside her presence at the Fulton County, Georgia raid, and requested the briefing occur no later than February 27, 2026.