Homeland Security Now Says Wisconsin Wasn't Hacked By Russians

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is now reporting that Wisconsin's voter registration system was, in fact, not targeted Russian hackers during the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, which was narrowly won by Republican Donald Trump.

According to a WISN 12 report, the state Elections Commission had been informed by the Department of Homeland Security that Russian Hackers attempted to exploit apparent vulnerabilities in the state's IT security systems to access the databases.

They were not successful, Department of Homeland Security officials said.

In getting back to state officials, the Department of Homeland Security said an entirely different system had been targeted by hackers - but stopped short of continuing its claim that the Russians were up to no good. "Based on our external analysis, the WI IP address affected belongs to the WI Department of Workforce Development, not the Elections Commission," Juan Figueroa, with Homeland Security's Office of Infrastructure Protection stated in an email published in a WISN report.

Michael Hass, Wisconsin Election Commission Administrator, had maintained that Russians were not involved in any pre-election shenanigans.

"The scanning had no impact on Wisconsin's system or the election," Hass said in a statement. "Internet security provided by the state successfully protected our systems. Homeland Security specifically confirmed there was no breach or compromise of our data."

According to a Chicago Tribune report published in late June, Hass said the DHS could have provided more detail and reported more quickly the apparent threats to elections systems at the local level.

Wisconsin ended up being one of 21 U.S. states that were reportedly targeted by Russian hackers. The DHS announced news of the potential data breaches at a June 21 U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, but didn't include Wisconsin as one of the affected states.

There is no telling what impact Russian hackers may have had in the outcome of the November 2016 presidential election in other states. Republican Donald Trump won the Wisconsin's ten electoral votes by a razor-thin margin.

Trump won Wisconsin over Democrat Hillary Clinton by a margin of 47.2 percent to 46.5 percent. The total number of votes separating the two was a mere 22,748 votes.

According to a USA Today report, the disclosure came a day after Gov. Scott Walker used his veto pen to cut six jobs from the state Elections Commission.

----------

patch.com file photo