When they didn’t find fraud while testing a voting machine for the Trump admin, this cyber firm faced a wave of backlash

A Cybersecurity Firm’s Basement Testing Reveals Voting Machine Flaws, Sparks Political Backlash

Goldlaner.com – When Mojave Research completed its examination of a voting machine for the Trump administration, the results told a story that political allies of the president were unwilling to hear. The cybersecurity company discovered significant vulnerabilities in the equipment but found no proof that those weaknesses had been manipulated to change election outcomes. This distinction proved crucial when administration officials sought validation for their persistent claims about widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential race.

Jason Wareham, the company’s chief executive officer, delivered his most detailed account of the episode at the DEF CON cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas this month. He described how his organization, despite having no previous experience evaluating election systems, was approached by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in the spring of 2025. The federal agency was conducting a comprehensive investigation into voting equipment nationwide and needed specialized analysis of a specific machine purchased from Puerto Rico.

Testing in a Virginia Basement

The examination took place under modest circumstances. Wareham conducted the intensive six-week evaluation from his basement in Reston, Virginia. The machine in question was manufactured by Liberty Vote, which had previously operated under the name Dominion Voting Systems. By July 2025, Mojave Research had compiled its findings into a formal report submitted to ODNI, though the document remains unpublished to this day.

Manbir Gulati, the firm’s chief technology officer, presented the results at DEF CON’s “Voting Village” symposium. His description captured the nuance of their discovery: substantial technical deficiencies existed within the system, yet those flaws had not been actively weaponized to alter vote counts. “We found extensive and largely unacceptable weaknesses, but we did not find evidence that those weaknesses were actively exploited or that votes were altered,” Gulati explained to the audience.

Political Rejection of Uncomfortable Findings

The administration’s response revealed deeper tensions. Rather than accepting the technical assessment, a coalition of Trump allies began questioning the credibility of the company itself. They circulated allegations that Mojave Research was financially backed by George Soros, the liberal billionaire who has become a frequent target of conspiracy theories alleging hidden influence over American institutions.

Wareham, identifying as a Republican, took formal action to counter these claims. In September, he filed a sworn declaration under penalty of perjury with the Trump administration. The document explicitly rejected accusations that his company represented “some form of deep plant meant to ensure the suppression of truth around compromised elections or election systems.” The filing included financial statements demonstrating no connection to Soros, whose name has been repeatedly invoked in antisemitic conspiracy narratives about secret power structures.

“During many of those interactions and meetings, Mr. Olsen would inform me he was speaking with [t]he President on the election topic and at times seemed to intimate that he spoke on this issue for him,” Wareham’s declaration states regarding attorney Kurt Olsen’s involvement.

The Role of Kurt Olsen

Central to the backlash was Kurt Olsen, an attorney who had emerged as a vocal critic of the 2020 election results. Despite lacking any background in election law before 2020, Olsen cultivated relationships within Trump’s circle and eventually secured direct access to the president. He positioned himself as a key figure in efforts to challenge election outcomes through legal channels.

Olsen’s credibility has faced scrutiny. The Arizona Supreme Court recently ordered him and his co-counsel to pay $2,000 in sanctions after they made demonstrably false statements about the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election during their unsuccessful attempt to overturn that result. According to Wareham’s declaration, Olsen repeatedly inserted himself into the ODNI’s voting equipment investigation, which operated under a program called the Director’s Initiatives Group.

Broader Implications for Election Security

The Mojave Research episode illustrates a pattern extending beyond Puerto Rico. The Trump administration’s examination of the 2020 election has reached Arizona, where the FBI secured records from an audit confirming Joe Biden’s victory in that state. Multiple Trump-aligned figures have simultaneously questioned both the audit results and the organizations producing them.

The government’s decision to issue a “stop-work order” on Mojave’s contract, as documented in Wareham’s declaration, effectively terminated the company’s work before completion. The email confirming this action, which Wareham shared with CNN, came shortly after his sworn declaration was submitted. This sequence suggests that political considerations, rather than technical findings, drove the administration’s response.

The case serves as a cautionary example for organizations attempting to provide independent analysis during politically charged periods. Mojave Research sought to deliver unbiased assessment of election security vulnerabilities. Instead, the company found itself caught between technical reality and political narrative, ultimately rejected by officials who remained committed to disputing the 2020 election outcome despite mounting evidence to the contrary.