North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein is asking the federal government for information about election tampering in North Carolina.
The request came in a letter to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced on Monday.
Specifically, he wants to know how safe North Carolina's digital voting system is, along with the broader spectrum of election hardware and software. He's also asking for an update to a federal report suggesting Russia attempted to hack the state's election systems.
But he's not just concerned about past years. Stein also wants to know how to counter possible tampering if it happens in 2018.
“In our democracy, the right to vote, to have one's vote be counted accurately, and to have one's vote mean something is absolutely critical,” he writes in the letter. “Anyone – particularly a foreign national or foreign government – who tampers with the security of our elections not only is a criminal, but also strikes at the very heart of democracy. That is intolerable.”
Stein's request comes on the heels of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's indictment – filed Friday – accusing multiple people and agencies of interfering with the 2016 presidential election on behalf of Russian interests.