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Updated on: July 16, 2026 / 11:52 PM EDT
/ CBS News
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In a primetime speech Thursday, President Trump alleged voting machines and ballot-counting systems are "extremely exposed to attack," pointing to intelligence that was declassified and released by the White House — following years of similar claims about voting machines.But some of the newly released documents are tied to a company that largely isn't used in the United States, and experts say voting machines are subject to intense controls."They're vulnerable and they're easily compromised, and people within our government knew that," the president said during the speech.Mr. Trump later pointed to CIA intelligence about a plot to use voting machines to "do a big number in favor of the corrupt Maduro regime in Venezuela," referring to voter fraud in that country.However, the Venezuela-related intelligence released by the White House focuses on election systems made by the company Smartmatic — and that company's technology is not used in the United States, aside from in Los Angeles County. Smartmatic has said it does not currently have any operations in Venezuela. While it worked in the country for about 13 years starting in 2004, it has said that in 2017, "our technology helped prove that the government was reporting false turnout numbers, so we blew the whistle on them and stopped doing business there at that time."In general, experts say voting machines in the U.S. are extremely difficult to compromise because they are closely monitored, they aren't connected to the internet, and in almost every state, they are backed up by paper ballots or receipts that can be audited to check the results by hand.
