There are three New York Times reporters listed as the writers of this report. ...Russia...in recent days has hacked into state and local computer networks in breaches that could allow Moscow broader access to American voting infrastructure. ...American intelligence agencies, infiltrating Russian networks themselves, have pieced together details of what they believe are Russia’s plans to interfere in the presidential race in its final days or immediately after the election on Nov. 3. Officials did not make clear what Russia planned to do, but they said its operations would be intended to help President Trump... So far, there is no evidence that the Russians have changed any vote tallies or voter registration information, officials said... ...American officials expect that if the presidential race is not called on election night, Russian groups could use their knowledge of the local computer systems to deface websites, release nonpublic information or take similar steps that could sow chaos and doubts about the integrity of the results... ... Officials say Russia’s ability to change vote tallies nationwide would be difficult, given how disparate American elections are. The graver concern is the potential effect of any attack on a few key precincts in battleground states. [77,000 "strategically placed votes" gave the 2016 election to PuppeTrump.] ... “You can’t just ‘hit the election’,” said Eric Chien, a cybersecurity director at Symantec, now part of Broadcom, which was among the first to detail the Stuxnet attacks by the United States and Israel on Iran’s nuclear program a decade ago. “The soft targets are really the state and local election committees, local websites that provide information about polling places and hold voter registration data.” ... Russian hackers recently obtained access “in a couple limited cases, to election jurisdiction, an election-related network,”... But...the breaches had “nothing to do with the casting and counting” of votes. The hackers, believed to be operating at the behest of Russia’s Federal Security Service, the F.S.B. — the successor agency to the Soviet-era K.G.B. — infiltrated dozens of state and local computer networks in recent weeks, according to officials and researchers. But Mr. Krebs said the attacks appeared to be “opportunistic” in nature, a scattershot break-in of vulnerable systems rather than an attempt to zero in on key battleground states. ... The officials fear that Russia could change, delete or freeze voter registration or pollbook data, making it harder for voters to cast ballots, invalidating mail-in ballots or creating enough uncertainty to undermine results. ... ...officials and researchers believe the Russian attacks would not necessarily change vote tallies but could make voter data inaccessible, or delete or change voters’ registration data, to disenfranchise voters or cause the kind of confusion and delays that would undermine American confidence in the election. [Query: If you're disenfranchising voters aren't you changing vote tallies?]