Story highlights 33 states and 36 local governments asked DHS for help from cyberattacks

Since the election, another two states and six local governments also requested assistance

Washington (CNN) More than five dozen state and local election offices requested help from the Department of Homeland Security to protect their election systems from cyberattacks, according to DHS documents obtained by CNN.

Before the 2016 US election, 33 states and 36 local governments requested an assessment of their election systems to help prevent cyberattacks, and another two states and six localities requested the assessment since the election, according to a DHS memo issued in response to questions from Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill.

The memo gives more detail on the scope of how many states and cities had concerns about the potential risk of a cyberattack last year, even before the Obama administration had issued its report confirming Russian hackers meddled in the US election.

Last month, DHS officials testified that the election systems of 21 states were potentially targeted by Russian government-linked hackers . None of the systems targeted were involved with vote counting, and only a very small handful of those states actually suffered any type of breach.

The DHS memo does not say how many of the 21 targeted states also requested a cyberassessment from the department.

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