FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. (WSVN) - Russians tried to hack into the computer system at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections Office during the 2016 presidential election, according to the Mueller report, but election officials said those attempts were unsuccessful.
The revelation takes up a little more than a paragraph in the 400-page document. The report names Russia’s largest foreign intelligence agency, the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, also known as GRU, as the entity responsible for the hack.
The report says, “…in November 2016, the GRU sent spear-phishing emails to over 120 email accounts used by Florida county officials responsible for administering the 2016 U.S. election.”
The report goes on to say, “The FBI believes that this operation enabled the GRU to gain access to the network of at least one Florida county government.”
Broward County officials said someone tried to hack into the system back in 2016 but was unsuccessful.
Steve Vancore, a spokesperson for the elections office, addressed the matter in a phone interview, Friday.
“The system noticed that they had an attachment, and the attachment was where the phishing code was located,” he said. “It never made it to the recipient because the system saw that there was potentially a virus in the attachment.”
Dr. Brenda Snipes, who was the Broward Supervisor of Elections in 2016, confirmed the security programs stopped the virus.
“The systems were monitored on a regular basis, and it was a system that was recommended by the state, so it worked,” she said in a phone interview.
Broward officials said, even if the emails had made it through, which they said didn’t happen, voting machines are not connected to the internet.
“The voter tabulation system is wholly contained, completely separated, not connected to the Internet, so that there’s no way anybody could get into that,” said Vancore.
Miami-Dade elections officials said their system held up as well and that there was no breach.
FBI officials are scheduled to meet with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the coming weeks to discuss the issue.
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