and then they said, wait a minute. wait a minute. russia and trump. no. russia did not help me. that i can tell you. okay? breaking news. nearly nine months after taking over the federal government, the trump administration finally confirmed to the associated press that today it told election officials in 21 states that hackers targeted their voting systems last year. the ap reports that for many states the calls friday from the department of homeland security were the first official confirmation of whether their states were on the list. the government did not say who was behind the hacking attempts but officials in three states said friday the attempts could be linked to russia. joining me now, natasha beltran and george butler. tasha, first your reaction to the idea that it took this long for the trump administration to inform 21 states that the
they needed an excuse, so they said, russia. and then they said, wait a minute. wait a minute. russia and trump. no. russia did not help me. that i can tell you. okay? breaking news. nearly nine months after taking over the federal government, the trump administration finally confirmed to the associated press that today it told election officials in 21 states that hackers targeted their voting systems last year. the ap reports that for many states the calls friday from the department of homeland security were the first official confirmation of whether their states were on the list. the government did not say who was behind the hacking attempts but officials in three states said friday the attempts could be linked to russia. joining me now, natasha ber tlt and george butler. tasha, first your reaction to the idea that it took this long
easy. because they have been angry since that 2000 ruling. this commission was set in place to protect the right to vote. the ballot box. we just saw all of these hacking attempts. 100,000 attempts alone in south carolina. we saw the russians trying to get into a number of other states. this commission is to protect the sanctity of the ballot box. for some reason republicans want to do this and i have been saying this, the republican party part party is the greatest threat to democracy when it comes to voting because they want to shave, they want to limit people of color from voting and young people from voting and this is not just a people of color thing. many whites in this country have also impacted when you re cutting off access to the ballot for the elderly. many who don t have driver s licenses as well as for young voters. that s what you see here and it s shameful and they keep doing it and i would hope some folks would stand up.
of those addresses in which hacking attempts had been made, at least some of those 17 definitively were computers in russia. now, what the hack attempt was there was not on computer systems that were used to tabulate the vote, but if you think about it, that doesn t necessarily matter. right? that specific doesn t matter, right? these particular hacking attempts in dallas county, they were apparently going after the voter file, the data base of registered voters. in dallas county, that s over 1 million people, your name, your date of birth, the address at which you re registered to vote. they check you against the data base when you show up to vote. you wouldn t have to mess with the counting of the vote in dallas county, or texas as a state, if you could screw up the voter file in the one or two counties where there was really crucial vote that was going to be determinative of how that state ultimately went in the
administ administer said they followed that. to see if they had been hit by any of those ip addresses on that list of 600 sent out by homeland security, they got 17 hits. 17 ip addresses made an effort to attack the dallas county voter roles. they worked with federal authorities. they told the county at least 17 of those addresses in which hacking attempts had been made, at least some of those 17 definitively were computers in russia. now, what the hack attempt was there was not on computer systems that were used to tabulate the vote, but if you think about it, that doesn t necessarily matter. right? that specific doesn t matter, right? these particular hacking attempts in dallas county, they