CISA Holds 85-Day Election Security Call as States Question Midterm Support
Updated
Updated · PBS NewsHour · Aug 10
CISA Holds 85-Day Election Security Call as States Question Midterm Support
3 articles · Updated · PBS NewsHour · Aug 10
Summary
An hourlong CISA call with state election officials marked one of the agency’s first broad midterm outreach efforts with Election Day just 85 days away.
CISA said it would provide physical and cybersecurity assessments on request and urged officials to work through regional directors, but sources said it offered few specifics on added help before November.
State officials pressed CISA over DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s recent threat to prosecute uncooperative election administrators, with one participant asking why states should trust an agency whose boss wants to jail them.
Requests for tabletop exercises, penetration testing and intelligence briefings drew what some participants described as noncommittal answers, and one secretary called the briefing “security theater.”
The strained call comes after the Trump administration cut election-security capacity across government, including roughly one-third of CISA’s workforce, even as Iran, Russia and China remain recurring election influence threats.
With federal election security support shrinking, how can local officials effectively defend aging voter registration systems against sophisticated foreign cyber threats?
Will the shift toward private vendors for election security leave critical intelligence gaps that local governments cannot fill before the midterms?
As federal agencies reduce their footprint, does decentralizing election administration to local IT teams create a more resilient system or a vulnerability?