CISA's Midterm Election Security Plan Leaves States and Counties Paying for What Washington Used to Provide
On 24 September, six weeks before the midterms, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency released its 2026 Election Infrastructure Security Plan. It promises monthly classified threat briefings with the FBI and intelligence agencies at more than 70 secure sites, a free threat-sharing platform linked to state fusion centres, and election advice from CISA’s ten regional directors.
What it doesn’t include is the dedicated election staff and funding the agency cut in 2025. The plan gives no staffing numbers or budget, and doesn’t mention the information-sharing centre most counties used.
What was cut
In February 2025 CISA put 17 election security staff on leave, ten of them regional specialists who had worked as state or local election officials and covered about 8,000 jurisdictions. In March it ended funding for the Elections Infrastructure ISAC, a threat-sharing network run by the nonprofit Center for Internet Security, saying the work “no longer supports Department priorities.” The saving was about $10 million a year.
Other federal units that tracked foreign influence closed too: the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force, the State Department’s office on foreign information manipulation, and ODNI’s Foreign Malign Influence Center, which was folded into other offices. CISA itself has lost about a third of its staff since early 2025.
The fiscal 2027 budget request would eliminate CISA’s election security programme altogether, subject to Congress.
What states and counties do now
The Center for Internet Security moved to paid memberships in mid-2025. About half of states and some 3,000 local bodies have signed up for a paid tier, including about 500 election offices. For a small county, even a fee of around $1,000 can be “nearly impossible,” an official in Okaloosa County, Florida, told Governing.
Some states have stepped in. Arizona approved a $3.4 million pool for election cybersecurity. West Virginia now leans on its fusion centre, universities and the National Guard for the scans CISA used to run. Minnesota replaced CISA’s testing and tabletop exercises with private partners. States also rely on about $45 million a year in federal election security grants, under $1 million each on average.
Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, put the change plainly in July: “In 2020, we had 30 different federal threat briefings. This year we received none.”
What officials say
The Brennan Center surveyed 834 local election officials early in 2026. Three-quarters said their state or local government hadn’t added resources to cover the federal cuts. Satisfaction with federal support fell to 45% from 53% in 2024. A third reported threats, harassment or abuse.
The Election Assistance Commission, which certifies voting systems and runs the grant programme, has had no commissioners since July, when the White House fired its two Democratic members and the Republican resigned.
The threat
The intelligence community delivered its foreign threat assessment for the midterms in late September, behind schedule, and plans two more classified reports but no public warnings. The New York Times reported in September that Russia was running covert online operations aimed at confidence in the vote, with no sign of attempts on voting equipment.
Why it matters
Elections in the US are run by about 8,000 local offices, many with a handful of staff. Federal support after 2016 was meant to give the smallest of them the same threat information as large cities. The 2026 plan keeps the briefings at the top. The gap is at the bottom, where a county clerk with no IT staff now has to buy what used to be free.