Foreign adversaries CAN change American votes, and states better take action: Mullin

President Donald Trump enraged Democrats and other leftists — including the heir to George Soros' activist empire — on Thursday by disclosing in his national address evidence pointing to the insecurity of American elections.

"Our elections were left vulnerable to being rigged and stolen, and the trust of the American people was lost," the president said. "This cannot be allowed to continue."

'We know that they can change voter registration and your vote. We know it's possible. There's not a question. It's not even for debate.'

While Democratic officials were still hyperventilating over Trump's insistence that lawmakers pass the SAVE America Act to protect against the kinds of trust-breaking meddling that evidence suggests occurred in recent years, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin detailed in a Friday briefing what his agency plans to do to "secure our elections."

"It shouldn't be a partisan issue," Mullin said. "This should be something that every American, regardless if you're a Republican, you're a Democrat, you're an independent, you're a libertarian — regardless of if you live in a blue state or you live in a red state — everybody should know that their vote counts. And we have individuals that are voting that shouldn't be. It cancels out someone that should be."

RELATED: Democrats go into FULL PANIC MODE after Trump exposes election interference from China and the deep state

Digging "just a little bit deeper" into some of Trump's claims from the night before, Mullin said the Department of Homeland Security has identified 250,000 noncitizens who were registered to vote in just four states — California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Nevada.

According to the DHS' preliminary review, there were 190,832 noncitizens registered to vote in California; 35,152 in New Jersey; 15,903 in Nevada; and 14,576 in Pennsylvania.

Mullin issued warnings to the secretaries of state for these four states on Friday, asking them to confirm within two weeks whether they intend to collaborate with the DHS on voter security measures.

"Mind you, we have 46 other states," said Mullin, who noted further that the DHS has worked with 23 "proactive states" to identify another 28,000 noncitizens on voter rolls, along with "400,000 individuals that are still registered to vote that are deceased."

Again reinforcing concerns raised by Trump on Thursday, Mullin claimed that foreign adversaries are able to gain access to American voting machines.

"Talking about our machines, we know for sure that our foreign adversaries — not our allies, foreign adversaries — have parts that are vital pieces in our voting machines. We know that they can access what they consider the key to the back of these machines," he explained.

"We know that they can change voter registration and your vote. We know it's possible. There's not a question. It's not even for debate," Mullin continued.

In terms of remedies, the DHS secretary said his agency will not only apply "maximum pressure" flushing out noncitizens attempting to vote, but — working in concert with U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick — will make new security enhancements "mandatory."

Accordingly, states seeking reimbursements for administering federal elections must take steps to ensure both that their voting machines are secured and their voter registration lists are "scrubbed."

"We are not going to spend taxpayer dollars reimbursing the state that is refusing to secure their elections," Mullin said.

The DHS announced last week that all Homeland Security Grant Program recipients must:

• submit a plan for phasing out certain electronic voting systems and shifting to hand-marked paper ballots;
• conduct a manual audit of at least 5% of all ballots cast after each federal election;
• reconcile the number of voters who participated in each federal election with the numbers of ballots cast;
• run voter rolls through the DHS' citizenship verification database; and
• use the Immigration Services' Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system or another authorized government system to ensure that everyone working at polling places or operating election systems are American citizens.

"States must do their part to secure our election system, and we stand by to help," Mullin said.

Mullin noted further that the DHS is working with the Pentagon to safeguard the voting systems used by military service members, and that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency will release an updated election infrastructure plan providing states with the additional resources "they need to help from the cyber side."

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