President Donald Trump's national address Thursday renewed debate over election security as he urged Congress to adopt tighter voting restrictions. "Mail-in ballots are inherently corrupt," Trump said during the address, repeating claims about the 2020 election that have not been substantiated. Trump did not single out Florida, but declassified records released by his White House did.
One declassified report says a Chinese cyber actor downloaded publicly available Florida voter-registration information from commercial websites in 2022. The same actor also obtained records from Colorado, Connecticut, Michigan, Oklahoma and Rhode Island. Another intelligence record lists Florida among 18 states whose voter information was obtained for possible identity matching and public-opinion analysis.
The records describe the collection of voter information, some of it publicly available, but do not say Florida ballots or vote totals were altered. The 2022 report also says the actor's motive was unknown. The White House characterized the broader collection effort as a major compromise of American voter data. However, an earlier federal assessment of the 2022 elections found no evidence that detected foreign cyber activity prevented voting, changed votes or compromised the integrity of ballots.