NBC News found itself in hot-water Thursday afternoon after publishing a misleading headline that stated Russians had “penetrated” US voter rolls during the 2016 election; prompting a fierce backlash from Secretaries of State from across the country.
The left-leaning news outlet published an article on Thursday titled, “Russians penetrated U.S. voter systems,” claiming that “Russians successfully penetrated the voter registration rolls of several U.S. states prior to the 2016 presidential election.”
“We saw a targeting of 21 states and an exceptionally small number of them were actually successfully penetrated,” an official at the DHS told NBC News.
The article was quickly rebuked by the National Association of Secretaries of State, saying “We are still only aware of one state voter registration system that was penetrated and that office made a public statement at the time.
“It is also important to note that some of the 21 states notified discovered it was not their election networks that were targeted or scanned, but other networks in the state and non-election related websites. To be clear, a scan is not a hack,” the statement adds.