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  • FACT FOCUS: Election officials knock down Starlink vote rigging conspiracy theories

    FACT FOCUS: Election officials knock down Starlink vote rigging conspiracy theories

    As President-elect Donald Trump begins filling key posts in his second administration, social media users are pushing false claims that the 2024 election was rigged in his favor.

    One such narrative claims that billionaire Elon Musk facilitated the alleged fraud with his internet service provider Starlink, manipulating the vote count through election equipment such as ballot tabulators. Starlink, a subsidiary of Musk’s SpaceX company, uses satellites to offer high-speed internet, even in remote areas.

    Here’s a closer look at the facts.

    CLAIM: Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk used his internet provider Starlink to steal the 2024 election for President-elect Donald Trump.

    THE FACTS: These claims are unfounded. Election officials, including from multiple swing states, told The Associated Press that their voting equipment doesn’t use Starlink and is not even connected to the internet. States have additional security measures to ensure that the count is accurate, according to experts. Election officials and security agencies have reported no significant issues with the 2024 race.

    “It is not possible that Starlink was used to hack or change the outcome of the US presidential election,” David Becker, founder and executive director of The Center for Election Innovation and Research, wrote in an email. “This, quite simply, did not happen, and could not happen, thanks to the security measures we have in place, and these conspiracy theories echo other disinformation we’ve heard over the past several years.”

    Becker further explained that the country’s nearly 10,0000 election jurisdictions use a wide range of voting machines that are not connected to the internet while voting occurs and that nearly all votes are recorded on paper ballots, which are audited by hand to confirm the results of electronic tabulators.

    “If anyone tried to interfere with the machines to rig the election, it would be discovered through multiple means, including reconciling the registered voters who cast ballots with the number of votes, as well as the audits,” he added.

    Certain jurisdictions in a few states allow for ballot scanners in polling locations to transmit unofficial results, using a mobile private network, after voting has ended on Election Day and the memory cards containing the vote tallies have been removed. Election officials who allow this say it provides for faster reporting of unofficial election results on election night. They say the paper records of the ballots cast are used to authenticate the results during postelection reviews, and that those records would be crucial to a recount if one was needed. Computer security experts have said this is an unnecessary risk and should be prohibited.

    Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Jen Easterly said in a statement on Nov. 6 that CISA has “no evidence of any malicious activity that had a material impact on the security or integrity of our election infrastructure.”

    Despite a lack of evidence, many on social media suggested that Starlink could indeed have been used to steal the election.

    “If Trump & Elon’s ‘little secret’ was to use Starlink in swing states to tally the votes & rig the election — an investigation & hand recount is crucial. Now,” reads one X post that had been liked and shared approximately 41,700 times as of Tuesday.

    Another widely shared X post states: “Elon Musk used Starlink to hack our elections so he can have nice things while inflicting pain on Americans. Are we really going to turn a blind eye to what happened and let the worst people among us run the country.”

    Election officials in North Carolina, Georgia and Pennsylvania — three of the seven swing states Trump won — told the AP that their voting equipment is never connected to the internet. In some cases, this is mandated by state law.

    “Satellite-based internet devices were not used to tabulate or upload vote counts in North Carolina,” said Patrick Gannon, a spokesperson for the North Carolina State Board of Elections. “In addition, our tabulated results are encrypted from source to destination preventing results being modified in transit. And no, tabulators and ballot-marking devices are never connected to the internet in North Carolina.”

    The Tar Heel State prohibits its voting systems from being “connected to a network” and requires any feature that allows such a connection to be disabled. This includes the internet, as well as any other wired or wireless connections.

    Gannon added that North Carolina has “no evidence of any alteration of votes by anyone” and requested that people stop spreading misinformation about elections.

    Mike Hassinger, a spokesperson for the Georgia secretary of state’s office, called the claims spreading online “absolutely conspiratorial nonsense.”

    “We don’t use Starlink equipment for any part of our elections, and never have,” he said. “Our election equipment is 100% air-gapped and never connected to the internet.”

    The term “air-gapped” refers to a security measure that isolates a secured computer network from those that are unsecured. This means it is impossible to use the internet to manipulate the software that tallies Georgia’s votes or the memory cards on which they’re recorded, according to Hassinger. He explained that memory cards are transported by hand in secure bags with tamper-evident ties to a central elections office where votes are tabulated. There is also a chain of custody protocol in place so that their movement is well documented.

    Matt Heckel, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of State, wrote in an email: “Counties do not use Starlink to transmit unofficial or official election results. No voting system in Pennsylvania is ever connected to the internet.”

    A pilot program in Arizona’s Coconino, Apache and Navajo counties intended to “enhance connectivity in underserved areas” uses Starlink systems to for electronic pollbook synchronization, according to JP Martin, a spokesperson for the Arizona secretary of state’s office. The state’s election equipment is air-gapped, one of many security measures.

    Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin also employ stringent precautions to protect the integrity of their voting equipment.

    Some posts spreading online pointed to a local news segment in which the registrar of voters in Tulare County, California, noted that internet connectivity at the county’s poll sites was improved this year thanks to Starlink. Stephanie Hill, a systems and procedures analyst for the agency, wrote in an email that “this connection is strictly for voter check-in purposes only and in no way a part of our voting system.” California is among the states that prohibit their voting equipment from being connected to the internet.

    Trump is currently beating Vice President Kamala Harris in Tulare County with 60% of the vote.

    Pamela Smith, president and CEO of Verified Voting, agreed that the idea that Starlink was used to rig the election is absurd.

    “While Starlink provided connectivity in a number of jurisdictions for electronic poll books (EPBs) in this election, neither Starlink nor other types of communication networks play any role in counting votes,” she wrote in an email. “Our elections produce huge quantities of physical evidence. A satellite system like Starlink cannot steal that.”

    —

    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

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  • US widens indictment of Russians in ‘WhisperGate’ conspiracy to destroy Ukrainian and NATO systems

    US widens indictment of Russians in ‘WhisperGate’ conspiracy to destroy Ukrainian and NATO systems

    BALTIMORE — The U.S. Justice Department has widened its indictment of Russians in the so-called WhisperGate malware attacks aimed at destroying computer systems in Ukraine and 26 NATO allies including the United States.

    A superseding indictment announced Thursday names five Russian military intelligence officers in a conspiracy to demoralize the Ukrainian people on the eve of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

    The WhisperGate attacks in January 2022 could be considered Russia’s first shot in the war, said William DelBagno, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Baltimore field office. The cyberattacks penetrated U.S. companies and targeted Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure and computer systems unrelated to defense, including the judiciary, emergency services, food safety and education, officials said.

    “Seeking to sap the morale of the Ukrainian public, the defendants also stole and leaked the personal data of thousands of Ukrainian civilians, including by posting patient health information and other sensitive private data for sale online and then taunting those victims,” said Matthew Olsen, assistant attorney general for national security.

    The attacks weren’t limited to Ukraine, Olsen said at the news conference in Baltimore, which also included Maryland U.S. Attorney Erek Barron.

    Olsen said. “They went on to target computer systems in other nations supporting Ukraine in its fight for survival. Ultimately, their targets included computer systems in 26 NATO partners, including the United States.”

    A federal grand jury in Baltimore indicted military intelligence officers Vladislav Borovkov, Denis Denisenko, Yury Denisov, Dmitry Goloshubov and Nikolai Korchagin along with Amin Timovich Stigal, a 22-year-old Russian civilian indicted in June. It accuses them of conspiring to gain unauthorized access to computers associated with the governments of Ukraine and its allies.

    Combined, the U.S. government is offering $60 million in rewards for help leading to their locations or malicious cyberactivity. All six are most likely in Russia, but federal officials said the indictment is useful anyway, to prevent them from traveling and to show that the U.S. has exposed their conspiracy.

    The U.S. investigation, Operation Toy Soldier, found the accused committed fraud in the U.S. by illegally accessing bank accounts and using a U.S. company to unwittingly carry out their crimes, DelBagno said.

    “Adding insult to injury these individuals not only used tools to scan for vulnerabilities 63 times on a Maryland U.S.-based government agency, but they also scanned our allies throughout the world, including Ukrainian servers and servers in various other countries,” Barron said.

    The FBI and government partners in other countries are issuing a joint cybersecurity advisory that details how the attacks were carried out and what can be done to prevent them, officials said.

    Countering Russia’s cyber threat demands constant efforts, they said. In January, the Justice Department also disrupted a botnet controlled by Russian military intelligence that officials say was used to enable crimes and espionage, and in May, officials announced charges against the alleged developer of a prolific ransomware variant known as LockBit.

    Other Russia-related prosecutions announced just this week include indictments unsealed Wednesday charging two employees of RT, a Russia state media company, with covertly funneling millions of dollars to a Tennessee-based content creation firm that paid social media influencers to publish videos in line with Russia’s interests, such as on topics like the war with Ukraine.

    DelBagno said the indictments are the result of years of collaboration with partners and law enforcement in Europe.

    “To the Russian criminals, the world is watching,” DelBagno said. “You do not carry out misdeeds in the dark. We are united in identifying, prosecuting and protecting against future crimes.”

    In another move targeting Russia, the State Department on Thursday imposed sanctions against two Russian companies and two ships they own that export liquefied natural gas from a previously sanctioned Russian energy project in the Arctic. The department alleged that the companies were using profits from the natural gas exports to fund Russia’s war in Ukraine.

    The department said it was designating the Gotik Energy Shipping Co. and the Plio Energy Cargo Shipping Co. along with their ships LNG New Energy and LNG Mulan for “supporting Russia’s war effort and attempting to expand Russia’s global energy leverage.” The sanctions freeze any assets the companies may have in U.S. jurisdictions and bar Americans from doing business with them.

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