The 2020 cyber invasion of Maricopa county elections

By Easton Martin | August 6, 2026

Newly released Federal Bureau of Investigation records detail a 2020 cyber intrusion in Maricopa County, Arizona, during which an individual unlawfully obtained 633,000 voter registration records prior to the presidential election.

According to an official letter sent to the White House Task Force on Government Transparency, signed by FBI Director Kash Patel on August 4, federal agents investigated cyber intrusion logs showing voter records were extracted from Maricopa County registrar servers.

Investigators identified a suspect who admitted to locating a vulnerability on the registrar website. The individual created a PowerShell script to exploit the flaw, sequentially scraping records belonging to 633,000 voters. The scraped data contained 930 sensitive, nonpublic records, including information related to law enforcement officers, domestic violence victims, and judicial officials.

The suspect stored the stolen data at a residence in Fountain Hills, Arizona, before destroying the files shortly prior to an FBI search of the home.

Despite the confession and the extensive resources expended during the investigation, multiple prosecutorial agencies chose not to file criminal charges.