Sanders campaign dismissed the breach of contract action pending against the DNC.

On December 18, 2015, the Democratic National Committee and Bernie 2016 appeared in United States District Court on Bernie 2016’s indication that it would be seeking an injunction in the breach of contract action it filed against the DNC earlier that day. The Sanders campaign alleged that the DNC wrongfully terminated its access to the party-administered voter file system, VoteBuilder, following DNC’s discovery that Sanders campaign personnel had discovered a flaw in system security and had accessed Clinton campaign proprietary score data.  

The parties proceeded in the course of the hearing to settle the immediate issue before the Court. The DNC agreed to restore access to VoteBuilder by the next day, and the campaign agreed to cooperate in an independent investigation of the data breach.  The Sanders campaign also agreed as part of this investigation to assume a share of the costs of the investigation.

The DNC and the Sanders campaign agreed on the retention of CrowdStrike to conduct the investigation. Over a five-week period and the commitment to the work of 128 hours, CrowdStrike examined user activity within VoteBuilder by three Democratic Presidential campaigns: Hillary for America, Bernie 2016, and O’Malley for President.  Additionally, CrowdStrike conducted a forensic examination of two systems belonging to the Bernie 2016 campaign. The investigation sought to first identify whether any campaigns’ users accessed data via the VoteBuilder system in an unauthorized fashion and then determine the nature of any unauthorized access that did occur.

The cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike has concluded the independent investigation agreed to by the DNC and Bernie 2016.  It identified evidence of unauthorized access via four user accounts from the Bernie 2016 campaign.  All unauthorized access occurred during a one-hour period from 10:41 to 11:42 EST on December 16, 2015.

During that time, the four users conducted 25 searches using proprietary Hillary for America score data across 11 states.  All of the results of these searches were saved within the VoteBuilder system, with the exception of one instance where a user exported a statistical summary of a search using HFA scoring in New Hampshire.

CrowdStrike found no evidence of unauthorized access by the Hillary for America or O’Malley for President campaigns. 

Today, the Sanders campaign also voluntarily dismissed the breach of contract action pending against the DNC.