Kirsten Gillibrand: Possible evidence voting machines targeted in 2016 election

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said Monday that there may be evidence various voting machines were targeted in the 2016 election.

“I’ve just heard some reports that there might have been efforts to decommission or somehow undermine different voting machine in different states, causing lines, causing people to not vote, particularly states being targeted,” Ms. Gillibrand, New York Democrat, said on CNN.

She did not specify where these reports came from, but Ms. Gillibrand is currently co-sponsoring a bill with Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina to look more into Russian-linked Facebook ads from the 2016 election. Robert Mueller, special counsel in the Russian investigation, is also looking into the ads to see if they influenced the 2016 election in anyway.

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“Sen. Lindsey Graham and I have a bipartisan bill to do a deep dive, a 9/11 style commission that will look into how were we hacked, what are our cyber vulnerabilities, what are our cyber vulnerabilities are today, and what can we do to prevent another type of interference in the ‘18 election,” she said.

The two senators announced the legislation on Friday to establish the National Commission on Cybersecurity of U.S. Election Systems to study the cyberattacks and see what can be done to prevent such hacks in the future.

As far as action against the actions in the 2016 election, Ms. Gillibrand said Russia is not above the law.

“It is illegal for foreign countries to undermine or participate in our elections so buying those Facebook ads is illegal,” she said. “We need to have much better accountability by the next election.”