According to current and former officials who spoke to TIME, hackers not only accessed voter databases, in at least one case they successfully altered data.
In one case, investigators found there had been a manipulation of voter data in a county database but the alterations were discovered and rectified, two sources familiar with the matter tell TIME. Investigators have not identified whether the hackers in that case were Russian agents.
The fact that private data was stolen from states is separately providing investigators a previously unreported line of inquiry in the probes into Russian attempts to influence the election.
The fact that the manipulation was "discovered and rectified" is not necessarily comforting. It shouldn't be possible to begin with, and I personally don't have much confidence that every potential breach has been discovered or rectified. I also expect it will happen again.
Investigators are reportedly looking into whether any of the data stolen in these breaches made its way to the Trump campaign.
My gut says it did. Much has been made of the data operation that fueled Trump's campaign, but we know Trump ran a bare-bones campaign with virtually no staff in wide swaths of the country. It seems reasonable to suspect that not all of the data acquired by Trump's allies was obtained through legitimate means. Access to the RNC's databases cannot explain all of it as the RNC ran a pathetic campaign in 2012.
We also know data obtained by Russian hackers was used against Democrats in Florida.