The Trump administration tried to declare Dominion Voting Systems' electronic voting machines a national security risk in a bid to ban their use in more than half of US states, according to multiple reports published in May 2026 [1, 2, 3, 4]. Kurt Olsen, Trump’s election security official and lawyer, pushed for this plan last year to replace the machines with a nationwide manual paper ballot recount system favored by Trump, despite election experts warning manual counts risk lower accuracy and greater errors [1, 2, 5, 3].

Paul McNamara, a senior aide to Trump’s intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard, led a working group within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to investigate vulnerabilities in voting machines. The group requested that the Commerce Department consider components like chips and software in Dominion's machines as national security threats [1, 2, 3]. Commerce Department officials began studying potential legal grounds to enact a ban over Dominion components in September 2025 but the plan failed when no evidence supporting the security risks was found [1, 2, 5, 3]. A Commerce Department spokesperson said Secretary Howard Lutnick "has never met or discussed election integrity issues with Paul McNamara and had no involvement on this topic" [1].

Extensive investigations found no evidence of hacking or foreign interference in Dominion voting machines [5]. The chips were sourced from US companies but assembled in countries including Malaysia, China, Japan, and South Korea [5]. Multiple state officials requested confidential voting equipment records or pressured for greater access in an effort to reexamine discredited voter fraud claims [1, 2, 3].

Democratic senators have called to remove Kurt Olsen from his post, as his goal was to invalidate Dominion machines before the November 2026 midterm elections [1, 2, 3]. Meanwhile, Trump and Republican allies are pushing early redistricting plans to gain electoral advantages ahead of those midterms [1, 2, 3].

On foreign policy, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio cautioned NATO allies to act in ways that benefit the US, saying "NATO must benefit all members; we are disappointed with some allies' international conduct" [4].

Kurt Olsen’s target deadline to invalidate Dominion machines is set for November 2026, before the upcoming US midterm elections [1, 2, 3].