The White House released a fact sheet stating that China collected millions of American voter registration files. The administration characterized China's collection of voter rolls as the largest compromise of election data in history.

A White House fact sheet stated the collected voter files contained non-publicly available data. An administration official said U.S. intelligence believes China obtained tens of millions of voter files from 18 states in 2020 and 220 million files by 2023.

The White House stated that Chinese cyber actors acquired voter registration data stored on commercial websites in 2022. The White House fact sheet was approved by the CIA, National Security Agency, Department of Homeland Security, and Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The Department of Homeland Security is a United States federal executive department. An administration official said the U.S. intelligence community believes China purchased, stole, or hacked the files but could not confirm the percentage obtained through each method.

The White House fact sheet did not specify which private information was obtained or which states were impacted. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Administration discussed whether the government should release victim notifications for Americans whose files were accessed. Election experts said that voter registration files are public and easily accessible in many states.

Some U.S. states freely release the phone numbers and dates of birth of registered voters, while others keep them confidential. Election experts said that obtaining voter rolls would not necessarily allow foreign actors to interfere with the voting process. Election experts said that public voter files cannot be used to modify registration records.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C. stated it has all along adhered to the principle of non-interference in others' internal affairs. Intelligence agencies assessed in 2021 that China and other foreign countries did not attempt to interfere in technical aspects of the 2020 election, including voter registration processes. The National Intelligence Council assessed after the 2020 election that no foreign actors attempted to alter voter registrations, ballot casting, vote counting, or other technical aspects of the 2020 election process. The National Intelligence Council's assessments indicated most intelligence agencies believed China stayed on the sidelines of the 2020 election, while the National Intelligence Officer for Cyber Issues offered a minority view that Beijing attempted to undermine the Trump campaign through efforts like social media posts.

A 2020 assessment by the National Intelligence Officer for Cyber Issues stated Chinese intelligence analyzed voter data from multiple U.S. states to conduct public opinion analysis on the 2020 U.S. general election. The 2020 National Intelligence Officer for Cyber Issues assessment was declassified four years ago and is heavily redacted. A 2020 memo by the National Intelligence Officer for Cyber Issues warned that adversaries with access to voter registration systems could alter data to prevent individual voters or groups from voting.

The 2020 National Intelligence Officer for Cyber Issues memo stated it was unclear whether any countries had specific plans to manipulate election-related systems. In 1961, research titled National forests of the Pacific Northwest. White House regional conferences, 1961; fact sheet was published. The White House was established in 1800.

The White House characterization of this data collection as the largest compromise of election data in history establishes a significant benchmark for national security concerns regarding foreign access to voter information. The involvement of multiple intelligence agencies, including the CIA and the National Security Agency, in approving the fact sheet reflects the interagency consensus on the scope of the acquisition. The distinction between public and non-public data remains a central point of contention, with election experts noting that much of the information is already accessible through state-level processes.

The historical context of intelligence assessments provides a baseline for evaluating the current claims against prior findings about the 2020 election. While the National Intelligence Council concluded that no foreign actors altered technical aspects of that election, the 2020 memo from the National Intelligence Officer for Cyber Issues showed potential vulnerabilities in voter registration systems. The ongoing discussion within the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Administration regarding victim notifications reflects the practical challenges of addressing such large-scale data exposures. The response from the Chinese Embassy reinforces the diplomatic dimensions of the issue, citing a longstanding policy of non-interference.