China and its proxies bought, stole, or hacked voter registration data covering as many as 220 million Americans, according to newly declassified U.S. intelligence documents released by the White House Government Transparency Task Force.
The task force released a fact sheet approved by the directors of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Department of Homeland Security following President Donald J. Trump’s recent decision to declassify the materials. The data gathered by Chinese actors included information that was not publicly available.
U.S. intelligence agencies first flagged a Chinese Computer Network Exploitation actor in 2022 for acquiring voter registration records stored on commercial websites. These exploitation actors typically rely on cyber operations to obtain restricted data.
The declassified materials outline official definitions used across the U.S. Intelligence Community to classify foreign threats.
The records define election influence as “overt and covert influence activities of foreign governments or actors serving as agents of, or on behalf of, foreign governments intended to affect directly or indirectly a US election- including candidates, political parties, voters or their preferences, or political processes.”
The documents distinguish election interference as a specific subset focused on technical operations, defining it as activities “targeted at the technical aspects of the election, including voter registration, casting and counting of ballots, and reporting of results.”
The intelligence records also outline potential risks associated with foreign access to voter records, noting that “adversaries could alter data to potentially prevent individual voters or groups of voters from voting, causing delays on election day or forcing voters to use provisional ballots. Adversaries could also use the registration data which in some cases is also available publicly or for purchase – to tailor other interference or influence efforts.”
The White House coordinated with the ODNI, DHS, CIA, NSA, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation while preparing President Trump’s July 16, 2026 speech regarding China’s election activities. Each participating intelligence agency reviewed and approved the factual assertions pulled from their internal records prior to the address.
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