Trump aide sought ban on Dominion machines nationwide

A Trump election-security adviser, Kurt Olsen, pressed last year for a way to target Dominion Voting Systems equipment used across more than half of U.S. states—arguing it could be treated as a national-security risk. The idea advanced into a Commerce Departme

On a tight timeline with the November midterms approaching, Kurt Olsen and the team around him tried to find a lever the federal government could pull to take control of election equipment—starting with Dominion Voting Systems machines used in more than half of U.S. states.

Olsen. a lawyer the Trump White House has tasked with pursuing widely debunked election-rigging conspiracy theories. pushed a plan last year to see whether the Commerce Department could declare components in the machines to be national-security risks. according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter. The plan. developed as Olsen and other officials brainstormed about how the federal government could take over elections from states—an idea Trump publicly aired—went far enough that. in September. Commerce Department officials began exploring what grounds could be invoked to execute it. three additional sources said.

It eventually fell apart. Olsen and other administration staffers working with him did not provide evidence to justify such a move, two of the sources said.

At the center of the push was an election vision Olsen wanted to build around hand-counted paper ballots. Sources said Olsen sought a national system of hand-counted paper ballots. a frequent Trump demand that some election-security experts say would be less accurate and potentially riskier than the current system used in most cities and states—machines paired with auditable paper trails.

For Democrats, the episode fits a broader fight over who runs American elections. The Constitution grants responsibility to the states to administer elections in order to prevent executive power from seizing control. The concern among Democrats and election-integrity experts. as Republicans look set to face losses in the midterms. is that the administration could be moving to suppress voting and later challenge results with baseless claims.

More than 98% of U.S. election jurisdictions already produce a paper record for every vote, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. with votes mostly cast on machines that print a paper record or are hand-marked and then counted by electronic readers. Election-security experts generally support the combination of technology and paper ballots because it creates a voter-verified trail for audits after elections.

Alex Halderman, a University of Michigan computer-science professor, said switching to hand counting would be chaotic and might facilitate cheating.

The White House did not accept the framing. In a response, White House spokesman Davis Ingle characterized the reporting about the effort as selectively leaked and called it misinformation.

What the administration sought to change wasn’t limited to ballot counts. Federal officials were also looking at how to treat voting technology through supply-chain rules.

Under U.S. supply chain rules. the commerce secretary has authority to restrict transactions with technology companies from nations designated “foreign adversaries. ” including China. Russia. and. specifically. the government of Venezuela’s former President Nicolas Maduro. whom the U.S. military unseated from power in January.

A key focus of Olsen’s efforts was pursuing evidence for what sources described as a debunked theory: that Dominion machines were infected with code controlled by Venezuelans to steal the 2020 election from Trump. Repeated investigations and lawsuits since 2020 have produced no evidence that Dominion machines were hacked. In 2023, Fox News paid Dominion $787 million in a defamation case tied to false election-rigging claims.

In 2024, at least 27 states used Dominion machines, a number similar to 2020. Dominion, based in Denver, was purchased last October by Liberty Vote USA of Colorado. In a statement. Liberty Vote said its “total focus remains on working in partnership with our customers – the dedicated election officials across the nation who are utilizing our election systems to deliver secure. accessible and transparent elections.”.

Still, Trump has continued repeating allegations tied to Dominion. Most recently on May 12, he reposted a 6-year-old clip from the far-right One America News network claiming Dominion machines deleted millions of votes.

Olsen’s work has also included a high-profile effort tied to Puerto Rico’s elections. In May 2025, Olsen helped lead a federal mission that seized Dominion machines Puerto Rico used in its 2024 gubernatorial election. An analysis by cyber contractor Mojave Research Inc. later that summer found known vulnerabilities but no Venezuelan-origin code or evidence of hacking.

Around the same time as McNamara’s conversation with Commerce officials. Olsen’s team took apart some of the Puerto Rico machines. the two sources said. looking for components manufactured by countries designated as foreign adversaries. The teardown found one chip packaged in China by U.S. company Intel—chips like that generally are not considered a threat to U.S. national security, according to the reporting. Other chips were packaged in Japan, South Korea and Malaysia, the two sources said.

The sources said Olsen’s report on the teardown described the chips as “East Asian,” which they believe was intended to obscure the failure to find any security risks.

A September White House meeting also fed into the broader inquiry. The meeting convened cyber experts at the National Security Council alongside Olsen’s team, according to two sources, and discussed whether Dominion equipment contained traces of Venezuelan code.

After the meeting. a Commerce Department political appointee asked the department’s office that assesses foreign national-security risks to tech supply chains to consider options to address any risks posed by voting machines. according to three additional sources. The office considered the matter but took no action, two of the sources said.

Alongside Olsen in the effort were other figures. Sources said Paul McNamara. a senior aide of Trump’s spy chief Tulsi Gabbard—who resigned on Friday—was among those involved. and Brian Sikma. a special assistant to Trump who works on his Domestic Policy Council. participated as well. Two sources with direct knowledge said Olsen worked closely with Gabbard’s Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).

McNamara. the sources said. had earlier asked Commerce officials to consider whether Dominion chips and software could be designated a national security risk. Early last summer, he headed an ODNI task force that worked across the administration to investigate vulnerabilities in U.S. voting machines. and he spoke about the issue to senior officials at the Commerce Department. which is run by Secretary Howard Lutnick.

Reuters was unable to determine whether Lutnick was involved in or aware of those discussions.

A Commerce Department spokesperson said Lutnick never met or discussed election-integrity issues with McNamara and did not “engage in the topic at all.” The spokesperson declined to comment on whether Lutnick’s office or other officials were involved. Olivia Coleman. a spokesperson for Gabbard’s agency. said ODNI. including McNamara. “did not brief on nor coordinate a plan with the Department of Commerce to take actions to ban Dominion voting machines.”.

Olsen, McNamara and Sikma did not respond to requests for interviews.

The political fallout has already begun. Democratic U.S. Senator Alex Padilla said Olsen should be fired, calling him a threat to democracy in a post on X. Olsen is working with the nation’s top intelligence and law enforcement agencies to pursue voting-rigging claims. and he has become a focal point for senators seeking to remove him from his post.

For now. the effort to exclude Dominion machines from elections through a federal national-security pathway has ended—at least for the moment—without evidence to justify it. But the questions the episode raises remain sharp. because it shows how close the federal government came to trying to override what states administer on Election Day—using a rationale that ultimately could not be supported.

Kurt Olsen Dominion Voting Systems Commerce Department election security paper ballots national security risk voting machines Puerto Rico election Alex Padilla Howard Lutnick Tulsi Gabbard ODNI National Security Council