Trump races to rebuild election security system his administration dismantled before midterms

The Trump administration is attempting to revive the federal system that helps protect United States elections less than 100 days before the November 2026 midterms and only weeks before some voters begin receiving mail ballots. A newly disclosed planning document says the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency will reassign remaining personnel, appoint intermediaries to rebuild relationships with state and local officials and use a security model developed for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The agency has also promised to publish a plan within 30 days identifying the cyber and physical security resources available to election administrators. State officials warn that the effort is arriving dangerously late after staffing cuts, terminated contracts and reduced federal coordination forced them to construct replacement security systems at their own expense.

The reversal creates an urgent test for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, commonly known as CISA. The agency spent years building bipartisan relationships with election administrators, monitoring cyber threats, coordinating incident responses and helping local offices protect voting equipment, computer networks and election workers. Much of that infrastructure was reduced after Donald Trump returned to office, as the administration reviewed election-security work, placed specialized employees on leave and stopped funding important information-sharing services.

The new operation is not simply restoring the previous system. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has connected federal assistance to broader administration demands involving voter-roll reviews, citizenship checks and participation in the federal SAVE verification program. That combination is generating concern that cybersecurity support designed to protect voting operations could become entangled with politically divisive efforts to expand federal influence over state-run elections.

CISA plans to use its World Cup security model to protect the 2026 midterms

The administration’s planning summary says CISA will apply a security mechanism used during the FIFA World Cup to the November elections. Large international sporting events require federal, state, local and private organizations to share information about cyberattacks, physical threats, infrastructure vulnerabilities and emergency incidents across many locations. The administration appears to believe that a similar coordination structure can be adapted quickly for election offices.

Under the emerging plan, CISA personnel would serve as intermediaries between federal agencies and state or local election officials. The document says those officials should build trusting relationships with election administrators, an implicit recognition that federal personnel cuts and policy disputes have damaged the partnerships developed during previous election cycles.

CISA has also promised a public plan detailing available cyber and physical security resources. Those services could include vulnerability assessments, threat briefings, incident-response support, exercises, guidance for protecting election facilities and assistance securing networks connected to voter-registration or results-reporting systems. The agency’s current election-security page continues to describe its role as protecting the physical and digital systems supporting American elections.

The challenge is that election preparation does not begin several weeks before voting. State and local officials typically test machines, train workers, review emergency procedures, secure ballot facilities and coordinate with law enforcement months before Election Day. Mail ballots and early voting begin well before November 3 in several states, substantially reducing the time available for federal agencies to rebuild relationships or introduce new procedures.

A closed congressional briefing reportedly revealed that CISA’s election-security staff remains so stretched that it may not be able to provide the level of assistance available during previous cycles. Reassigning employees can create organizational charts quickly, but experienced election-security professionals need time to learn state systems, understand local contacts and establish trusted methods for sharing sensitive information.

Trump administration cuts forced states to create their own election defenses

States have not waited for Washington to rebuild the federal operation. Election offices have hired private cybersecurity companies, recruited additional information-technology specialists, conducted tabletop exercises and created new channels for sharing threat information with neighboring states and local governments.

These measures can reduce immediate vulnerability, but they cannot fully reproduce the federal government’s capabilities. CISA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Security Agency and the intelligence community can collect and analyze threat information that individual states cannot obtain independently. Federal coordination can also identify when apparently isolated incidents in several jurisdictions form part of one national or foreign campaign.

The Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center previously provided a central platform through which election officials could monitor threats, exchange warnings and receive technical assistance. Senators Alex Padilla, Mark Warner and Gary Peters said the administration had ended federal support for that center while failing to provide a plan for deploying election-security advisers despite congressional funding.

The senators also said requests for election-security briefings from CISA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation had not been fulfilled, describing that silence as a departure from previous election cycles. They warned that information-sharing and incident-response mechanisms had been weakened through federal personnel and funding cuts.

Before the reductions, CISA’s involvement was extensive. The agency reported conducting more than 700 cyber assessments and nearly 1,300 physical security assessments for election stakeholders between January 2023 and the end of 2024. Those services gave local offices access to federal expertise that many small counties could not afford independently.

Vermont Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas told CNN that federal agencies had previously supported much of the security work states are now attempting to perform themselves. Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar argued that rebuilding the federal system immediately before the election was too late, although officials acknowledged that experience accumulated during earlier election cycles would help states adapt.

Federal election assistance is becoming linked to Trump’s voter-roll demands

The revived security effort is unfolding alongside an aggressive administration campaign targeting voter registration and citizenship verification. Mullin has demanded that California, New Jersey, Nevada and Pennsylvania investigate more than 250,000 people whom the Department of Homeland Security characterized as potential noncitizens on voter rolls. The department did not publicly provide evidence supporting those totals or explain the criteria used to generate them.

Nevada disputed the figures as speculative and unsupported, while Pennsylvania said it would evaluate information supplied by the federal government but would not disclose private voter data. Election officials have emphasized that noncitizen voting is extremely rare and that states already use identity checks and voter-list maintenance procedures.

Mullin has warned that state officials who refuse to follow federal demands could face funding losses, investigations, fines or even criminal penalties. Legal experts quoted by the Associated Press questioned whether the federal government has authority to impose those consequences because the Constitution assigns states primary responsibility for administering elections. Courts have also blocked several administration attempts to compel states to turn over sensitive voter information.

The administration has encouraged states to use the Department of Homeland Security’s expanded SAVE program to check citizenship information. At least 25 states have used the platform since April 2025, but a federal judge recently restricted the redesigned system after eligible voters were reportedly flagged incorrectly, creating concerns about privacy and wrongful removal from voter rolls.

Mullin said cyber resources would be offered to election officials participating in SAVE. Linking operational security assistance to a controversial voter-verification program could create different levels of federal support among states, particularly where officials question the database’s accuracy or legality.

Cybersecurity and voter eligibility are related to election administration, but they are not interchangeable. Cybersecurity involves protecting computer systems, facilities and communications from attack or disruption. Voter-roll maintenance involves determining who is legally registered. Combining the two could discourage some states from requesting federal technical assistance because accepting that assistance may be perceived as endorsing unrelated political or legal demands.

Foreign threats remain possible even without evidence that voting results were changed

The United States faces legitimate election-security risks. Foreign intelligence services, criminal hackers and politically motivated groups can target campaigns, election offices, vendors, public websites and employees through phishing, ransomware, impersonation and denial-of-service attacks.

Those attacks do not need to change votes to cause damage. Temporarily disabling an election website, stealing voter data or publishing manipulated documents could create confusion and weaken confidence in the result. Physical threats against election workers and facilities have also become an increasingly important part of the security challenge.

Mullin has claimed that foreign adversaries possess access to components inside voting machines and could change voter registrations or votes. He did not provide evidence supporting that assertion, and Reuters reported that there have been no known foreign attacks that directly manipulated the outcome of a United States election.

Voting systems are not invulnerable, but election officials use overlapping safeguards such as pre-election testing, restricted physical access, paper records, postelection reviews and audits. The effectiveness of those protections varies by jurisdiction, making federal assessments and information sharing particularly valuable.

The strongest election-security model is therefore neither automatic confidence nor unsupported claims that systems have been compromised. It requires continuous testing, transparent procedures, rapid threat reporting, paper records and credible audits capable of confirming that reported outcomes match ballots cast.

Rebuilding trust may be harder than restoring the technical infrastructure

CISA’s greatest challenge may be institutional trust rather than technology. Election officials need confidence that information shared with federal agencies will be used to protect their systems instead of advancing partisan investigations or pressuring states over disputed voter policies.

The Trump administration has repeatedly questioned voting machines, mail ballots and previous election results. State officials may therefore hesitate to share network vulnerabilities, operational problems or sensitive voter information if they believe that ordinary security issues could be transformed into claims that an election is fraudulent.

Federal officials face the opposite concern. They need states to report suspicious activity quickly so incidents can be compared across jurisdictions and connected to national intelligence. A state that withholds information because of political mistrust could prevent investigators from recognizing a coordinated foreign or criminal campaign.

The newly disclosed plan acknowledges this problem by instructing CISA intermediaries to rebuild trusting relationships. That work will require consistent nonpartisan conduct, clear limits on data use and separation between technical security assistance and political demands over voter eligibility.

The administration deserves credit for recognizing that the federal election-security function must be restored. However, recreating a network after dismantling staff, contracts and communication channels is more expensive and difficult than maintaining it. States have already redirected money and personnel toward services previously supplied through federal partnerships.

The next several weeks will show whether CISA can deliver practical support before voting begins or whether the new plan primarily demonstrates that the earlier withdrawal went too far. Election security depends on preparation completed before a crisis, not promises issued after ballots are already moving through the mail.

Key takeaways from CISA’s attempt to rebuild election security before the midterms

• The Trump administration is reviving federal election-security operations less than 100 days before the November 3 midterms, leaving limited time to restore personnel, relationships and threat-sharing systems before early voting begins.
• CISA plans to adapt a security-coordination model used for the FIFA World Cup, bringing federal, state, local and private organizations together to address cyber and physical threats.
• The agency has promised to publish a plan within 30 days identifying security resources available to states, but some election officials say meaningful preparation should have occurred months earlier.
• Federal staffing reductions and contract cancellations weakened the national infrastructure previously used to share warnings, conduct assessments and coordinate responses across jurisdictions.
• States have hired private cybersecurity vendors, added technology specialists and conducted their own emergency exercises, shifting costs previously supported by the federal government to local taxpayers.
• State-led security can protect individual jurisdictions, but it cannot fully replace intelligence and threat analysis from CISA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other national agencies.
• Homeland Security has connected some federal assistance to state participation in the SAVE citizenship-verification program, raising concern that technical security support is being mixed with politically contested voter-roll policies.
• The administration has claimed that more than 250,000 potential noncitizens are registered in four states, but it has not publicly provided evidence substantiating that number.
• Courts and state officials have challenged federal demands for voter data, while election experts maintain that noncitizen voting is exceedingly rare.
• CISA can restore equipment, personnel assignments and public plans relatively quickly, but rebuilding bipartisan trust with election officials will require clear safeguards and sustained nonpartisan cooperation.