Press Releases

 On Thursday, U.S. Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) issued the following statement on the FBI briefing for the Florida delegation into the Russian intrusion of Florida’s elections in 2016:

“Today’s briefing is further confirmation that our national security is constantly under siege,” Waltz said. “Our electoral system – the heart of our democracy – is under persistent attack from our adversaries. The victims of this attack aren’t local elections supervisors – they are the voters and our democracy.”

Thursday’s briefing was a result of a bipartisan letter sent earlier this month to the FBI by Waltz and Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.).

In addition to the two successful infiltration attempts made in 2016, Russians also made other intrusion attempts for voter information in other counties in Florida and all 50 states nationwide. The FBI has not publicly disclosed the names of the successfully hacked counties but indicated Russia did not alter vote tallies or voter information.

“It is unacceptable that we cannot inform the voters what happened in 2016,” Waltz said. “Maintaining the integrity of our elections is an ongoing battle. The first step to preserving our electoral system is by being transparent and declassifying the names of the affected counties,” Waltz said. “Those voters and all Floridians deserve to know what happened in 2016. I’ll be working with my colleagues to standardize our defenses across counties and states and clarify public notification procedures to ensure we’re doing all we can to protect our elections going forward.”