Tulsi Gabbard’s Office Reveals Voting Machine Probe In US Territory

A team working under Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard probed Puerto Rico’s voting machines in May 2025, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

The aim of the operation was to work alongside the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to look into allegations that Venezuela had hacked voting machines in Puerto Rico, but the investigation ultimately found no clear evidence of Venezuelan interference in the U.S. territory’s elections, Reuters reported, citing three anonymous sources. Gabbard’s office confirmed the investigation in a statement to Reuters but denied any connection to Venezuela, saying the focus was on vulnerabilities in the island’s electronic voting systems.

As part of the probe, Gabbard’s team seized an undisclosed number of Puerto Rico voting machines along with additional data copies, a spokesperson for Gabbard’s Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) told Reuters, adding that collecting voting machines and data is “standard practice in forensics analysis.”

Gabbard’s office added that “ODNI found extremely concerning cyber security and operational deployment practices that pose a significant risk to U.S. elections,” Reuters reported.

“Given ODNI’s broad statutory authority to coordinate, integrate, and analyze intelligence related to election security and our known work on understanding vulnerabilities to foreign and other malign interference, ODNI conducted an examination of electronic voting systems used in Puerto Rico’s elections,” an ODNI