WASHINGTON — A top Trump administration official last year pushed to ban voting machines used in more than half the states, citing unproven claims of foreign interference and election rigging, according to people familiar with the internal discussions.
Kurt Olsen, a White House adviser tasked with investigating election fraud allegations, asked whether the Commerce Department could label components in Dominion Voting Systems machines as national security risks. The effort, which surfaced during brainstorming sessions about shifting election control to the federal government, aimed to replace the machines with a nationwide system of hand-counted paper ballots before the midterm elections.
Two people with direct knowledge of the matter said the proposal advanced far enough that Commerce Department officials began exploring legal grounds for such a ban in September. It ultimately fell apart after Olsen and his team could not supply evidence to support the move, the sources said.
Olsen has worked closely with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on these issues. Paul McNamara, a senior aide to Director Tulsi Gabbard who led an ODNI task force on voting machine vulnerabilities, raised the idea of designating Dominion chips and software as national security risks with Commerce officials early last summer, according to the sources.
Brian Sikma, a special assistant to Trump on the Domestic Policy Council, was also involved in the deliberations. A Commerce Department spokesperson said Secretary Howard Lutnick never met with McNamara or discussed election-integrity issues with him and did not engage in the topic at all.
Olivia Coleman, a spokesperson for Gabbard’s agency, stated that ODNI, including McNamara, “did not brief on nor coordinate a plan with the Department of Commerce to take actions to ban Dominion voting machines.”
The push reflects a broader administration effort to challenge state authority over elections, a power the Constitution assigns to states and localities. A Reuters investigation found officials in at least eight states seeking confidential voter records and access to voting equipment while revisiting fraud cases previously dismissed by courts.
“Changing to hand counting would be chaotic, and it might facilitate cheating,” said Alex Halderman, a University of Michigan computer-science professor.
More than 98 percent of U.S. election jurisdictions already produce a paper record for every vote, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Most ballots are cast on machines that print voter-verified paper trails or are hand-marked and scanned electronically.
Olsen’s focus included long-debunked theories that Dominion machines contained code controlled by Venezuela to alter the 2020 election results. In May 2025, his team helped seize Dominion machines used in Puerto Rico’s 2024 gubernatorial election. Analysis by Mojave Research Inc. later found known vulnerabilities but no evidence of Venezuelan-origin code or hacking.
During a teardown of some Puerto Rico machines, the team discovered one chip packaged in China by Intel and others from Japan, South Korea and Malaysia. Olsen’s report reportedly described the chips as “East Asian,” which sources said appeared intended to downplay the lack of security threats.
A September White House meeting with National Security Council cyber experts discussed whether Dominion equipment contained traces of Venezuelan code. Following the session, a Commerce political appointee asked the department’s supply-chain risk office to consider options, though no action was taken.
White House spokesman Davis Ingle called the reporting selectively leaked and labeled it misinformation. Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla urged Olsen’s removal, describing him as a threat to democracy.
Trump has continued to repeat the allegations, including a May 12 repost of a years-old clip from One America News claiming Dominion machines deleted millions of votes. Dominion was purchased last October by Liberty Vote USA of Colorado. At least 27 states used the machines in 2024.
Election-security experts have warned that shifting to hand-counted ballots could introduce new risks of errors and fraud while proving less accurate than current systems with auditable paper trails. The episode underscores ongoing tensions over federal involvement in elections ahead of the November midterms.