Ohio among targets of election hackers, US says

The federal government Friday told election officials in 21 states, including Ohio, that hackers targeted their systems last year, although in most cases the systems were not breached.

The government told The Associated Press last year that more than 20 states were targeted by hackers believed to be Russian agents before the 2016 elections. But 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 AP contacted every state election office on Friday. While not all of them responded immediately, those that said they were targeted were Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.

The government did not say who was behind the hacking attempts or provide details about what had been sought. But election officials in three states said Friday the attempts could be linked to Russia.

The Wisconsin Election Commission, for example, said the state’s systems were targeted by “Russian government cyber actors.”

Federal officials said that in most of the 21 states, the targeting was preparatory activity such as scanning computer systems. The targets included voter registration systems but not vote-tallying software. Officials said there were some attempts to compromise networks but most were unsuccessful.

Only Illinois reported that hackers had succeeded in breaching its voter systems.

Colorado said the hacking wasn’t quite a breach.

“It’s really reconnaissance by a bad guy to try and figure out how we would break into your computer,” said Trevor Timmons, a spokesman for the Colorado secretary of state’s office. “It’s not an attack. I wouldn’t call it a probe. It’s not a breach, it’s not a penetration.”

The disclosure to the states comes as a special counsel probes whether there was any coordination during the 2016 presidential campaign between Russia and associates of Donald Trump.

On Friday, Trump again deflected concerns that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election in his favor.

“The greatest influence over our election was the Fake News Media “screaming” for Crooked Hillary Clinton. Next, she was a bad candidate!” Trump tweeted.

In another early morning Twitter post, Trump referred to the multiple investigations into Russia’s meddling as a “hoax” and returned to accusing the media of biased coverage during the campaign in support of Democrat Hillary Clinton.

“The Russia hoax continues, now it’s ads on Facebook. What about the totally biased and dishonest Media coverage in favor of Crooked Hillary?” Trump posted.

The president’s downplaying of Russian involvement in the 2016 election comes as Facebook provides congressional investigators with more than 3,000 advertisements that Russia purchased during the campaign.