The Trump administration has recently terminated millions of dollars in federal funding from two cybersecurity programs, one of which was aimed at assisting state and local election officials. The funding cuts from the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) include about $10 million annually that was previously allocated to the nonprofit Center for Internet Security. This decision reflects the administration’s ongoing efforts to scale back federal involvement in election security, raising concerns about potential vulnerabilities to foreign interference in U.S. elections.
In response to these funding cuts, CISA has initiated a review of its election-related activities, leading to the placement of more than a dozen staff members on administrative leave. This move follows the disbandment of an FBI task force dedicated to investigating foreign influence operations targeting U.S. elections. These actions have sparked apprehension among experts like Larry Norden from the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, who expressed worries about the impact on the security of future elections.
The decision to cease funding for the Centers for Internet Security’s cybersecurity initiatives, which include the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center and the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center, will affect critical areas like cyber threat intelligence and incident response. CISA justified this move as a means to streamline its focus on essential tasks and eliminate redundancies. Following this development, the Center for Internet Security announced it would no longer support the election-specific initiative.
The National Association of Secretaries of State, representing state election officials nationwide, has sought clarification from CISA regarding the funding cuts and the recent review of election-related efforts. Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, president of the bipartisan group, indicated that further information is needed before definitive conclusions can be drawn. The association’s executive board has urged CISA to continue providing crucial services to state and local election officials, emphasizing the importance of ongoing support for the election information sharing center.
Simon mentioned on Monday that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) operates under the Department of Homeland Security, with its own Senate-confirmed director. President Donald Trump has not yet appointed a CISA director. Established in 2018 during the first Trump administration, CISA is responsible for safeguarding critical infrastructure in the United States, including dams, nuclear power plants, banks, and voting systems. A representative from the National Association of State Election Directors expressed the group’s interest in understanding the impact of federal budget cuts on their activities. Shenna Bellows, the Secretary of State of Maine and former chair of the election information sharing initiative, highlighted the initiative’s vital role in supporting last year’s presidential election. By enabling election officials to share real-time information on malicious cyberattacks, states could proactively safeguard their networks. Bellows emphasized the importance of defending the electoral process from sophisticated threats, stating that the discontinuation of the information sharing initiative is both ineffective and perilous.
