CISA pledges election coordination after cuts hollowed out state ties
The 2026 election security plan names regional directors as advisers and touts a threat-sharing platform, but doesn't restore dedicated election adviser positions or identify funding, while the agency's own FY27 budget proposal zeroes out the election security program.
TL;DR
CISA released its 2026 Election Infrastructure Security Plan Thursday, naming its 10 regional directors as election security advisers and describing a free threat-sharing platform connecting election officials, state fusion centers, and federal partners. The document follows months of staffing and program reductions that Michigan Deputy Secretary of State Aghogho Edevbie told lawmakers had destroyed working relationships with CISA personnel. The plan doesn't announce restoration of dedicated election adviser roles or specify funding. The Trump administration's FY27 budget proposal would eliminate CISA's election security program entirely, a shift that still requires congressional approval.
The plan is the clearest account yet of how the second Trump administration intends to support election security ahead of the November midterms. It also lands in a credibility gap of the administration's own making.
Michigan's Edevbie told a House hearing in April that local election officials had been corresponding with CISA staff and then, "all of a sudden, there's no response, because presumably that person has been fired." The drawdown, he said, had "been very damaging." Under the new plan, regional directors will oversee election support while cybersecurity advisers and protective security advisers provide technical guidance and assess risks to facilities. Election officials request assistance through CISA's regional offices.
The information-sharing architecture relies heavily on state and regional fusion centers as a key channel for election intelligence, with CISA coordinating threat reporting alongside the FBI and DHS's Office of Intelligence and Analysis. The agency also says it's supporting a platform through which election officials can receive threat indicators and coordinate with federal partners in near real time, available at no cost to all fusion centers and state and local election offices, and modeled on what was used during the 2026 World Cup.
But the document doesn't name the platform, specify when officials can enroll, or describe its staffing and operating hours. It also doesn't mention the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center, the long-standing hub for election threat intel that previously received CISA support, funding the FY27 budget proposal would end.
"Election security is national security," Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in a statement. The plan doesn't explain how that squares with a budget that proposes eliminating the program meant to deliver it.
Published ·Deep Fathom