DHS official once urged banning voting machines
A senior Department of Homeland Security official now overseeing election infrastructure previously advocated banning voting machines, a reporting project noted. The move has drawn scrutiny from voting rights groups and could increase local attention to audits and machine security ahead of future elections.
Harvilicz was named assistant secretary for cyber, infrastructure, risk and resilience policy subscriber.politicopro.com in July 2025, the senior DHS post now charged with coordinating federal work on election infrastructure. He co‑founded Tranquility AI with former NSA official James Penrose, a company that markets the TimePilot investigative tool and lists Harvilicz among its leadership on its corporate site tranquility.ai and on its 2025 intellectual‑property filings. propublica.org Penrose has been tied to post‑2020 efforts in Georgia, including work to seize voting machines and a grand‑jury subpoena connected to those investigations, according to reporting on his role. theintercept.com In a March social‑media post Harvilicz wrote, “DHS needs to ban voting machines for all federal elections,” a line cited in ProPublica’s March 14, 2026 investigation. propublica.org Nine state attorneys general sent a March 9, 2026 letter seeking clarification from DHS about agency statements and policies related to elections, signaling official state‑level scrutiny. sos.state.co.us Election‑security experts and current and former DHS officials warned that the new leadership choices could undermine trust between federal and state officials and lead some states to withhold operational information from the agency. truthout.org DHS has also tied new eligibility and procedural requirements to its election‑security grant program, a change that analysts said put about $28 million — roughly 3% of the program’s funds — at risk for some jurisdictions. kpbs.org
