Cybersecurity Agency Ends Support to Election Security Program

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) — the federal agency responsible for the nation’s cybersecurity — has officially cut funding to support states and local election offices on election security. 

Election officials have warned that the cuts, which the administration signaled since before taking office, could leave them unable to protect voting systems from external threats. 

In a statement to Democracy Docket, a CISA spokesperson said the agency, which is a part of the Department of Homeland Security, has “determined that certain federally funded work organized under the cooperative agreement with [Center for Internet Security], for both the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center and the Election Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center, no longer effectuates department priorities.”

Ever since President Donald Trump’s return to the White House, state and local election officials and voting rights advocates feared he would gut CISA’s crucial election security operations. Project 2025 — the Heritage Foundation’s massive, detailed playbook for a conservative administration — called for CISA to be scaled back immensely, reduced to its “statutory and important but narrow mission” of “securing the cyber domain and critical infrastructure.” 

Since then, the Trump administration has followed the Project 2025 playbook on CISA closely, placing its election staff on administrative leave, and now gutting its election security operations and programs. The funding cuts were first reported Tuesday by VoteBeat.

And it’s already having a profound impact on state and local election offices. In a recent interview with Democracy Docket, Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said that the defunding of EI-ISAC will impact his office’s coordination with county election offices around the state for this year’s local elections. 

“Right now, we are effectively flying blind,” Fontes said. 

Last week, Fontes sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, urging her to reconsider funding cuts to CISA’s election security operations. “My office’s resources to anticipate and guard against threats to the integrity of Arizona’s election system are limited,” he wrote. “For us, DHS’s withdrawal of the full cooperation and support of our partners at CISA means our capacity to conduct this important work will be severely compromised.”

A spokesperson for Fontes’ office said that he hasn’t received any response from Noem or her office.

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon (D) — who also serves as the president of the National Association of Secretaries of State — sent a similar letter to Noem raising concerns about cuts to CISA and its effect on election security. Simon told Democracy Docket that he received a response from Noem on Tuesday. “The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is currently undertaking an internal review of all election security related funding, products, services, and positions,” the letter said. “These actions are being taken to ensure that all election security efforts are in alignment with the agency’s statutory authorities and its critical cyber, physical, and emergency communications mission.”

The letter also said that state and local election officials could continue to receive some of the products and services offered by EI-ISAC through CISA’s Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC). But Noem’s letter didn’t specifically outline all of the services that would continue to be offered through MS-ISAC, which also lost its federal funding. 

“While I wish that they had consulted with Secretaries of State, election administrators and others, I understand that the decision is final,” Simon said in an interview with Democracy Docket. “What I don’t yet know is whether the services and offerings that we have received from EI-ISAC will continue in some sort of new arrangement.”

Simon specifically mentioned access to services like the Albert sensors — a network that monitors for threats and issues alerts — that his office and local election offices have come to rely on. 

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold (D) is also working to figure out how to fill the void left by CISA cutting funding to EI-ISAC. 

“Since January, the Trump administration has cut vital election security programs and there is uncertainty about the future of funding for federal programs that safeguard elections,” Griswold said in a statement to Democracy Docket. “My office is currently examining how to fill potential gaps.”

In a statement to Democracy Docket, a CISA spokesperson added that ending the agency’s EI-ISAC program “will save taxpayers approximately $10 million a year, focus CISA’s work on mission critical areas, and eliminate redundancies.”