Florida congresswoman says voters should be able to verify 2016 ballots were not altered by hackers

Florida voters remain vulnerable due to not knowing which counties were hacked by Russians during the 2016 U.S. presidential race, Rep. Stephanie Murphy warned Wednesday.

Rep. Murphy, Florida Democrat, raised concerns during an interview with voters being left in the dark months since learning that at least two, unspecified Florida counties had their election systems compromised during the previous White House race by suspected Russian state-sponsored hackers.

The FBI has not revealed which counties were hacked, and Ms. Murphy said that a report issued recently by the Senate Intelligence Committee suggests as many as four in Florida were breached.

“The drips and drabs of information that are coming out about this very serious attack on our democracy is not helpful in helping us prepare to respond to it.” Ms. Murphy told MSNBC host Chris Hayes.

“The way that you combat information warfare is to be able to have a whole-of-society approach, and that involves inoculating the public; giving them the tools so that they can discern what has happened and then protect themselves against future attacks,” said the congresswoman.

Floridians first learned that state election systems were breached in April, nearly three years after the race ended, when it was mentioned briefly in the report released by Robert Mueller, the former special counsel who led the Department of Justice investigation into Russian interference.

Officials previously unaware of Mr. Mueller’s findings subsequently sought and received briefings from the FBI in which they were told at least two Florida counties had been hacked, according to attendees. More recently, the Senate panel’s report released in July said that an unidentified state presumed by some to be Florida had systems in four counties hacked. None of the affected counties have been publicly disclosed, however, and officials briefed by the FBI said they agreed not to identify them.

Both the Justice Department and Senate committee’s reports have found that Russians failed to alter any voting data by breaching election systems.

Asked on MSNBC how Floridians can be certain their votes were cast correctly, Ms. Murphy proposed starting with some transparency.

“The way that you could probably convince people that their information wasn’t changed is to let the voters know which countries were affected and allow voters to go verify for themselves that their information wasn’t changed,” said Ms. Murphy.

“We are watching the lack of information, the shroud of secrecy, undermine the voters’ confidence in our systems,” said the congresswoman.

The FBI declined to comment on the congresswoman’s complaints.

Mr. Mueller’s report assessed that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 race in a “sweeping and systematic fashion,” which included cyberattacks waged by state-sponsored hackers against U.S. targets including voting infrastructure. Moscow has denied responsibility.