ESS CEO Testified Under Oath – DS200 Programmable Logic Devices Manufactured in China (China)

During a January 9, 2020 Congressional hearing before the House Administration Committee – held less than ten months before Election Day – ESS CEO Tom Burt testified under oath that the programmable logic devices (PLDs) used within ESS tabulators, specifically the DS200 widely deployed in Wisconsin, are manufactured in a factory in China. Wisconsin municipalities deployed ESS DS200 tabulators widely for the 2020 election. Programmable logic devices are the firmware-programmable semiconductor components that execute the core vote-tabulation logic; they are, by design, reprogrammable after manufacture. A PLD manufactured in a facility in the People’s Republic of China is subject to the full range of PRC intelligence oversight obligations, including potential firmware modification at the point of manufacture or through supply chain interdiction. This testimony constitutes a sworn, on-record admission by the largest U.S. voting machine vendor that the core computational components of its tabulators originate from an adversarial foreign nation.