A newly uncovered provision buried inside the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is renewing concerns about federal overreach into election administration — and reinforcing warnings that election policy is increasingly being advanced outside of public view.
The issue echoes long-standing concerns raised by Sen. Mark Finchem, who previously filed a federal complaint citing failures by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to address documented vulnerabilities in voting systems. Together, these developments point to a troubling pattern: election-related decisions being centralized, obscured, and insulated from meaningful oversight.
In July 2022, The Gateway Pundit reported on testimony given in a federal complaint that was filed by Kari Lake and Mark Finchem in the US District Court in Arizona. The complaint was a civil rights action for declaratory and injunctive relief to prohibit the use of electronic voting machines in the State of Arizona ahead of the 2022 Midterm Elections.
That complaint included testimony from a former Voting System Testing Labs contractor by the name of Clay Parikh. Parikh would go on to discover the 19-inch ballot printing error that plagued the Maricopa County 2022 midterm elections, causing massive delays and disenfranchising thousands of voters.
Parikh worked as a security tester and subject matter expert for Wyle Laboratories and Pro V&V from 2008 through 2017, and had tested hundreds of voting systems, including Dominion Voting Systems (now Liberty Vote) and ES&S voting systems.
He testified that it would take him anywhere between “five to ten minutes” to hack into these systems, with a “best time” of two and a half minutes. All of these hacks were recorded and his reports were given to the voting system test labs.
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With the National Defense Authorization Act signed by President Donald Trump on December 18th, 2025, a little-known section was snuck into the 3000+ page bill: Section 6805. Requiring Penetration Testing As Part Of The Testing And Certification of Voting Systems.
This section amends the Help America Vote Act of 2002 by adding a “Required Penetration Testing” section that “provides for the conduct of penetration testing as part of the testing, certification, decertification, and recertification of voting system hardware and software” by an accredited laboratory.
The amendment now requires the penetration testing as a condition of certification from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) and allows consultation with the National Institute of Standards and Technology or any other federal agency on “lab selection criteria” and “other aspects of the program.”
Continue reading: https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/12/national-defense-authorization-act-ndaa-contains-hidden-election/