The 2024 presidential election gave America a bitter echo of 2020 – but with the parties reversed. After Donald Trump returned to the White House, a growing chorus of Democratic voters called the results illegitimate. The election-denial baton, once gripped tightly by MAGA diehards, now passed to disillusioned Harris supporters.
Then came a bombshell. Last month, former CIA officer Adam Zarnowski claimed the NSA secretly audited the election—and found Kamala Harris had actually won. “By a wide margin,” he said. But according to Zarnowski, that audit was buried. Hidden. Suppressed. And Donald Trump, despite losing, was “installed.”
“In December 2024, I was personally involved in an NSA‑authorized forensic audit of the 2024 election. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz won—by a wide margin. Trump lost dramatically,” Zarnowski wrote. “There are multiple layers of complexity to this cover‑up, including transnational organized crime syndicates that extend far beyond the United States and our elections. To that point, I work in the human trafficking sector, which intersects with the stolen election(s) and has ties to Trump and Epstein—not to President Biden, Vice President Harris, or Governor Walz, but to the Democrats and other allied interests responsible for burying the audit.”
While there’s no public evidence of Zarnowski’s explosive claim, that hasn’t stopped the story from spreading across the internet, especially among voters who can’t square Trump’s victory with what they saw on the ground in November. And the official narrative is now brushing up against a series of real anomalies in key counties, real software changes to voting machines, and real gaps in oversight. And when facts are scarce, perception fills the void.
There is no official confirmation that the NSA ever audited the election. The agency doesn’t audit elections. As former intelligence officials have said flatly, “the NSA doesn’t authorize or have anything to do with election audits.” That’s not their job. What they do is monitor threats—especially foreign ones. If they detected hacking or strange data patterns, they could flag that internally. But that’s a long way from concluding a different winner.
So yes, the NSA likely monitored for cyber threats in 2024. That’s part of its cybersecurity mission. But did it do a recount? Issue a secret report naming Kamala Harris the real winner? There’s zero public proof. And no second source has come forward to back up Zarnowski’s story. He’s standing alone—for now.
Why People Are Listening
The reason this story is spreading isn’t just political tribalism. It’s because parts of Zarnowski’s claims touch on things that actually happened.
Take ECO 1188, a little-known software change made by voting machine vendor ES&S just weeks before the election. It quietly reclassified a key configuration file—configuration.ini—from “semi-static” to “dynamic.” Translation: the file no longer had to match its certified version. This meant it could be altered without setting off the system’s tamper alerts.
Why does that matter? Because that file controls reporting functions. And if it’s editable without detection, it could—at least in theory—be used to alter how vote totals are compiled and displayed. That doesn’t mean it was used that way. But it could be.
Cybersecurity expert Harri Hursti said it best: “If you’re not checking, you’re not protecting.” ES&S made a security downgrade under the radar. That’s a fact.
Then there’s what happened in Rockland County, New York, where affidavits showed more people voted for Senate candidate Diane Sare than the machines recorded. Dozens of ballots mysteriously skipped Kamala Harris’s name altogether. A judge ordered a hand recount after watchdog group SMART Elections sued. No smoking gun was found, but a judge found enough to say something didn’t add up.
In Pennsylvania, election officials raised red flags about the ECO 1188 software change. One county reported that a “crucial security feature was turned off.” The state allowed it to stand, citing Pro V&V’s certification. But critics weren’t satisfied. As one election watchdog put it, “They made a change that reduced security. They did it quietly. And they called it minor.”
Whether you believe in vote rigging or not, this much is undeniable: anomalies happened. And officials haven’t always been transparent about them.
Perception is Power—And It’s Fueling Doubt
After Trump’s 2020 loss, many Republicans believed the vote was stolen. Now, after Harris’s 2024 defeat, many Democrats are following the same path. In a May 2025 poll, 41% of Harris voters said they believe the 2024 election was illegitimate. That’s nearly the same as GOP numbers after 2020.
So what’s fueling this bipartisan crisis of confidence? It’s not just Facebook conspiracies. It’s the silence of officials who treat technical questions as threats. It’s the lack of transparency around software changes. It’s the reality that the U.S. voting system is run by a handful of private vendors, tested by private labs, and governed by outdated federal rules.
When voters see a “backdoor” software change weeks before the election, with no press release, no audit, and no explanation—that breeds suspicion. When affidavits in New York show votes going uncounted, but the official story is “nothing to see here”—that invites doubt. When a former CIA officer says there was a buried audit, and no one even asks the NSA if that’s true—that raises eyebrows.
Even if every one of Zarnowski’s claims turns out to be wrong, the questions he’s raising—about software security, oversight, and accountability—aren’t going away.
Let’s be clear: there is no verified proof that the NSA found Kamala Harris won. There’s no report. No leak. No corroboration.
But it’s also true that certain vulnerabilities were introduced before the election. And certain counties are now facing real scrutiny for vote anomalies. That’s not fiction. That’s fact.
The full Rockland County recount is underway. Pennsylvania’s configuration change is still being investigated by watchdogs. And election integrity groups are demanding more transparency from vendors like ES&S and labs like Pro V&V.
As for Zarnowski? He might be wrong. He might be lying. Or he might be the first person to say out loud what others are afraid to investigate.
Until we know more, we can’t say Kamala Harris won. But with the irregularities piling up, it’s getting harder to dismiss the possibility that something altered the outcome.
