The Trump administration is taking steps to weaken election security in the US, potentially jeopardizing the integrity of future elections. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is facing significant cuts and its election security activities have been paused. Funding for the Election Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EI-ISAC) has been halted, and staff involved in election security have been placed on leave or targeted for termination. This erosion of federal election support comes as the administration seeks to exert greater control over elections, aided by recommendations from Project 2025, a plan for dismantling key government agencies and functions.
In its crusade against federal agencies, the Trump administration is targeting our election system, making potentially dangerous reductions to protections that help keep elections free, fair, and secure.
On Friday, the acting director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agencyto all agency staff notifying them that “all election security activities” would be paused pending the results of an internal investigation. The memo also stated that the administration was cutting off all funds to the—a Department of Homeland Security–funded organization that helps state and local officials monitor, analyze, and respond to cyberattacks targeting the nation’s election hardware and software. The work of CISA and the EI-ISAC has been central to election security in the United States for most of the past decade, providing state and local election officials with critical tools and assistance to defend against cyber and physical threats to election systems. These steps and other recent blows to federal election guardrails were foretold inChanges to CISA began shortly after Kristi Noem was sworn in as secretary of Homeland Security, which oversees the agency. Beyond the announced election security pause and defunding of EI-ISAC, the agency also puton leave and targeted them for potential termination. These staff include CISA’s regional election security advisers, who are former state and local election officials that provide on-the-ground security support to current frontline election workers, and members of the agency’s Election Resilience team, whotargeted because they had previously been involved with the agency’s efforts to communicate accurate information about election security to election officials and the public.Although state and local election officials from both sides of the aisle have praised CISA for providing such support, President Donald Trump andhave criticized the agency ever since Trump’s first appointee to lead CISA, Christopher Krebs, promoted accurate information about the 2020 election, including that the, leaders at the Department of Homeland Security will decide next steps for CISA’s election security initiatives when its review is completed March 6. But given the president’s attacks on CISA’s work, it is not difficult to imagine that the administration will permanently gut the agency’s election security role, as recommended in Project 2025. Even if CISA nominally continues to offer limited election security support, cutting its staff and deprioritizing its work may mean that the nearly 10,000 local election officials on the ground feel very little benefit from the group. The new administration’s attacks on federal election security assistance extend beyond CISA or the EI-ISAC. Almost immediately after she was sworn in as attorney general,. The task force was established during Trump’s first term, following Russian actors’ attempts to interfere in the 2016 election by hacking campaign emails, influencing public opinion through social media, and probing for cybersecurity weak points in voter registration systems. Interference from Russia and other countries continues to threaten American elections. In 2024 bomb threats that appeared to comeThe Trump administration also took aim earlier this month at the Federal Election Commission, the bipartisan agency that regulates campaign finance in federal elections. Project 2025 called for a weaker FEC, arguing that the independent agency should do less to regulate political spending. In an, Trump tried to fire the commission’s chair. The move came just as the FEC is set to adjudicate campaign finance complaints from the 2024 election, many of which involved billionaire Elon Musk’s contributions to and spending on behalf of the Trump campaign. Each of these maneuvers weakens the guardrails that have kept American elections secure and fair. And again, they may be just the beginning, given other election-related recommendations in Project 2025.public and private institutions like task forces and university researchers that study election lies and attempt to communicate accurate election information to the public. Project 2025 even suggestsThe Surprising Answer to the Big Legal Question of This MomentFortunately, the pushback against at least some of these efforts already has a blueprint in the pushback against executive orders targeting other government functions.have already been filed in response to Trump’s executive orders. Public pressure campaigns also appear to have had some success, with leaders in the Trump administration—to prevent Americans from voting, or exercising their First Amendment rights to tell the truth about elections, can likewise be fought in courts of law and public opinion. But even if such battles roll back some of the worst abuses, it is clear the federal government will, at best, play a much smaller role in protecting elections. That means state and local governments willto secure our elections in 2026 and 2028. Lawmakers, governors, and other public leaders, together with civil society, must step into the space vacated by the federal government by providing support, resources, and protections to secure local election infrastructure and defend voters’
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