Catherine Herridge’s report this week should not be dismissed as another abstract debate about election technology. The documents behind it are public, and they sharpen a question California officials have evaded for years: when election systems carry acknowledged supply-chain and cybersecurity risks, why is independent verification so often treated as a threat rather than a duty?
The responsible answer is not to assume that a machine changed a vote. It is also not to insist that certification makes further scrutiny illegitimate. The responsible answer is to examine the paper, reconcile the records, test the exact equipment, and publish the result.
| THE ESSENTIAL DISTINCTIONFraud is an allegation of intentional wrongdoing. Machines can malfunction, software can be misconfigured, records can be incomplete, and people can make mistakes without anyone intending to alter an election. |
Three questions that must not be collapsed into one
Herridge’s disclosure raises three separate questions. Keeping them separate protects both election integrity and factual accuracy:
- Foreign manipulation. Did a foreign government successfully alter an American vote count? The released intelligence says there is no evidence that China did so.
- Supply-chain exposure. Did major vendors use components manufactured in China or other adversary countries? DHS says the vendor testimony establishes that risk.
- Ordinary failure. Could equipment, software, procedures or records fail without fraud? Yes. Mechanical, clerical and administrative errors require correction even when criminal intent is absent.
The 2020 congressional hearing cited by DHS made the same practical point. As one voting-system witness put it: “On rare occasions, machines falter, and humans make mistakes.” That statement does not establish that a particular county result was wrong. It explains why verification exists.2
Nothing in the records cited here establishes that a foreign actor altered a vote, that these systems miscounted an election, or that any county official acted fraudulently. The case for expanded auditing rests on risk and verifiability—not an accusation of crime.
The federal warning—precise, serious and limited
In an August 24 letter to the White House Government Transparency Task Force, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said voting machines containing components manufactured by foreign adversaries present “significant security risks.” Relying on 2020 congressional testimony, the letter identified Election Systems & Software, Hart InterCivic and Dominion as the three vendors then supplying more than 80 percent of U.S. voting machines, and said representatives of each had acknowledged that some parts were made in China.1
The underlying hearing record gives that statement needed scale and context. The parts discussed included items such as displays, glass, capacitors, resistors, and a programmable logic device. The vendors said some components had no practical domestic substitute; they also told Congress they knew of no foreign-government breach or tampering of their systems. The DHS disclosure establishes a supply-chain exposure. It does not establish that China altered an American vote count.2
That distinction is not a retreat. It is the dividing line between evidence and speculation. An administration official also told Herridge there was no intelligence that China had successfully manipulated an American vote count. The National Intelligence Council assessment released with the materials said election tabulation is highly secure, large-scale alteration would likely be detected, and it had no indication that foreign adversaries attempted such attacks in the prior two federal cycles.1
| THE LIMIT OF THE EVIDENCEThe DHS disclosure documents a real supply-chain risk. It does not prove tampering, exploitation, or an altered Riverside vote. |
DHS nevertheless announced a concrete grant condition. For fiscal-year 2026 Homeland Security Grant Program awards, the department says states seeking access to the full award must demonstrate a post-election manual audit of at least 5 percent of ballots after each federal election. The underlying grant notice holds back 20 percent from drawdown until specified election-security conditions are met.3
That rule is prospective, applies to federal elections, and is not a retroactive judgment about any California result. It is not an order for a full recount. But it is a federal acknowledgment of a basic principle: a paper record has value only when officials use it to test the machine-produced result.
California’s ordinary safeguard is narrower: state law generally requires a public manual tally of ballots from 1 percent of precincts, supplemented so every contest is included. That process can detect tabulation error in the sampled ballots, but it is not the same as reconciling every ballot category or conducting a broad performance audit. The federal 5 percent grant condition does not invalidate California’s certified elections; it does show that Washington now expects a more substantial paper check as a condition of full funding.15
Source:
https://joehoft.com/paper-audits-are-necessary-when-china-made-parts/
Liên Minh Bảo Hiến Mỹ Gốc Việt
Vietnamese American Conservative Alliance (VACA)
https://freedom-vaca.org/vaca-blog-tieng-viet-nam/
https://freedom-vaca.org/vaca-main-blog-english-articles/