A newly released CIA summary describes years of Venezuelan efforts to develop voting-machine techniques capable of replacing legitimate results with false votes while avoiding detection during audits.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
Declassified U.S. intelligence records describe a series of Venezuelan government efforts between 2004 and 2020 to manipulate electronic voting systems, including an alleged plan to insert false votes, overwrite unfavorable data and make altered results appear authentic.
President Donald Trump released the intelligence publicly Thursday and cited the findings as evidence that the United States must strengthen protections surrounding electronic election systems.
The material, detailed in a report by Just the News, focuses on capabilities developed under the governments of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro to influence elections inside Venezuela.
U.S. intelligence officials were particularly concerned because Chávez’s government had worked with Smartmatic, a voting-technology company that acquired the U.S.-based Sequoia Voting Systems in 2005.
According to a June 2026 CIA summary of earlier intelligence reporting, analysts concluded in 2006 “that Smartmatic’s susceptibility to Venezuelan government manipulation makes the acquisition a potential instrument for Venezuelan officials seeking to undermine confidence in, or manipulate the electoral process in, the United States.”
Those concerns prompted the U.S. government to intervene, ultimately requiring Smartmatic to divest its ownership interest in Sequoia in 2007.
Smartmatic did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Just the News.
Although analysts identified potential vulnerabilities connected to Venezuelan influence and voting technology, the intelligence reviewed did not establish that Venezuela interfered with election systems in the United States.
The full declassified CIA note on Venezuela was released publicly Thursday after being declassified earlier this year.
2026.06 – CIA Note Venezuela by yourNEWS Media
Trump presented the document during a White House address focused on election integrity and urged Congress to approve legislation intended to improve the security of American elections.
He said the intelligence gathered over 16 years demonstrated how foreign governments could attempt to exploit weaknesses in electronic voting infrastructure.
“Today, we are releasing documents that show the CIA obtained reporting of a specific plot to do a big number in favor of the corrupt Maduro regime in Venezuela, and that’s exactly what happened. Conspiring to digitally rig their own country’s elections in 2020, and that’s what they did,” Trump said Thursday.
“This reporting included precise details about methods the regime developed to digitally alter vote totals in ways that could not be detected, even with an audit, no matter how deep they went,” he added. “This intelligence underscores why we must take urgent action to ensure that our own system can never ever be hacked or compromised […]”
The intelligence cited by Trump described an alleged Venezuelan plan for the country’s 2020 parliamentary elections that would allow officials to alter electronic results while concealing evidence of the changes.
The proposed method involved replicating digital hash files transmitted to a central vote-counting database, imitating voting machines that produced results favoring the ruling party and overwriting files associated with machines reporting stronger support for opposition candidates.
The system was also intended to make altered votes appear as though they had originated from legitimate voting equipment.
Hash files function as a form of “digital fingerprint” used to authenticate software and verify that electronic data has not been changed, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.
The CIA said the proposed technique “would, in theory, allow the Venezuelan government to monitor and adjust results in real-time during and after the election.”
Analysts also concluded that the technology was designed to avoid detection through conventional election audits.
Despite those findings, the CIA determined in 2006 that “neither Smartmatic nor the Venezuelan government had the capability—that is the level of control or access required—to manipulate the outcome of an election outside of Venezuela in a predictable fashion.”
The intelligence community reached a separate conclusion regarding Venezuela’s December 2020 National Assembly elections.
Analysts found that Maduro’s government “did not need to resort to gross fraud to win the December 2020 National Assembly elections” because numerous opposition parties had boycotted the contest.
The declassified records therefore document alleged Venezuelan attempts to create advanced vote-manipulation capabilities while also distinguishing those plans from confirmed interference in U.S. elections.
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