States don’t trust the federal government to consistently communicate electoral threats: Exclusive – In accordance with internal National Association of Secretaries of State documents obtained exclusively by Sorteasport, state election officials do not anticipate that the federal government will consistently provide election threat intelligence during the midterm elections.
According to a bipartisan association email dated March 27, “federal agencies are not seen by states as reliable or sufficient options for being the national hub for election threat information sharing.” It adds that “states do not expect these entities to reliably share the information they receive.”
The worry is a reflection of election officials’ general lack of trust after the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, underwent organizational changes, manpower reductions, and funding reductions. That organization has been the main source of cyber support and election security briefings since 2018.
Election authorities have been collaborating with organizations and tech firms across party and state boundaries for months to create alternate avenues for exchanging intelligence and cybersecurity assistance. That attempt is unlikely to equal the federal system it is replacing, according to a number of officials.I believe we will survive until 2026. “I believe it’s adequate, but it’s definitely not equal,” Democratic Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes stated. “You’re discussing the actual possibility that something could go between the cracks. The number of cracks has significantly increased. States don’t trust the federal government
Threat intelligence teams from Microsoft and Google attended recent meetings between the National Association of Secretaries of State, or NASS, and the National Association of State Election Directors, which were reported in the letter dated March 27.
The letter was approved by the Republican and Democratic heads of the National Association of Secretaries of State.
The head of the group, Republican Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson, said on March 27, “A brief review, but looks fine to me.”
On March 30, Democratic Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs’s staff reacted favorably.
Property of the People got the memo and additional papers through a records request. They were only provided with Sorteasport by the group that promotes national security transparency.
According to Ryan Shapiro, executive director of Property of the People, “the documents reveal that even Republican leaders are being driven into the arms of industry to defend the American vote from the Trump administration’s ongoing sabotage of our electoral infrastructure.”
Watson and the executive board of his association encouraged the White House to keep giving state and local election officials danger intelligence on March 11.
“There is ongoing uncertainty about federal service availability for the 2026 election year, particularly when it comes to election threat information sharing,” Watson stated in a statement released by his staff. Over the past several days, I’ve been in contact with the DOJ and the acting head of CISA, and I anticipate those discussions will continue.”
In response to a request to address the issues, CISA issued a statement outlining the agency’s duties.It stated, in part, “We are dedicated to assisting state and local election officials to preserve election infrastructure and protect our democracy.” States don’t trust the federal government
Requests for examples of the agency’s 2026 cooperation with states went unanswered.
A federal retreat
According to Fontes, CISA’s support for both Democratic and Republican-led states has drastically decreased over the past year.We’re not receiving any information, assistance, or support,” he remarked. “CISA basically has been eviscerated as far as their support of election administration is concerned.”
For this piece, Sorteasport reached out to almost a dozen Democratic and Republican secretaries of state. Staff for two of the Republicans verified that the federal government had largely abandoned its pre-election coordination with states, but none of the Republicans were made available for interviews.
Since Trump signed it into law in 2018, CISA has served as a channel for the federal government to disseminate resources related to election security, such as threat-awareness training and confidential briefings regarding foreign attempts to tamper with elections. Additionally, it offers real-time monitoring of election-related websites for potential threats as well as cyber and physical security support.
However, a third of CISA employees were let go by the Department of Homeland Security in 2025 due to buyouts, early retirements, forced reassignments, and widespread layoffs. The funding for multistate and election infrastructure information-sharing projects was then canceled, costing millions of dollars. The actions essentially destroyed the system designed to alert election officials to possible cyberthreats. The Senate has yet to confirm a director for CISA.
Trump has called to “nationalize” elections in an effort to restructure American election management since taking office again. In the meantime, the FBI has confiscated materials from the 2020 election in Georgia and Arizona, and his administration has sued states for access to voter registers. His remarks about deploying the National Guard or U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to polling places have prompted states to provide election workers with training.
According to David Becker, founder and executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, a nonpartisan nonprofit that collaborates with election officials to improve election security and integrity, the actions have made many election officials of both parties wary of putting their trust in the federal government.
There isn’t a single jurisdiction that I am aware of that looks to the federal government as a partner, leader, or expert. They’re actually getting ready for the opposite, according to Becker.
Information-sharing initiatives
According to state officials, as federal financing has diminished, nonprofits and private sector partners have grown in significance.
According to spokesperson John Milhofer, the National Association of Secretaries of State, which has traditionally served as a forum for secretaries to examine concerns to election security, has increased its efforts this year.
The organization does not want to overstate its capabilities in comparison to what the federal government has done in the past, according to another internal email written on March 30.Depending on how comfortable each state is with each entity, we essentially advise sharing everything with everyone. We can’t do much to assist with incident response (apart from establishing connections), but regrettably, I believe NASS and NASED are the only possibilities for consistently sharing with other states this year,” it states.
According to Fontes, state officials have relied on the internal barriers they had already established as well as their connections with one another.It’s painful, and trying to put things back together has taken a lot of time and effort,” he remarked.
Democrat Shenna Bellows, the secretary of state for Maine, stated that states are paying for expenses that were previously paid by the federal government and frequently find out about cyber problems from news reports rather than federal briefings.Bellows stated, “They’ve kept sending the message that the states are on their own.”
For instance, she stated that election officials have not received any classified briefings regarding whether Iran is increasing its efforts to sabotage the election while the conflict is still going on.
“But there’s no question that this is really a function that the federal government should be providing.” She stated that collaborating with nonprofit and commercial sector partners should help close the gaps.
In an era when numerous nation-states are investing enormous resources in an effort to tamper with U.S. elections, Hobbs and other state election officials said they felt essentially alone.They’re using all these resources to accomplish that, and we have to fight on our own. Each of the fifty states and territories will fight independently. We make every effort to unite. Hobbs stated, “We’re doing our best, but it would be nice to have the government there with an extra layer of protection.” States don’t trust the federal government
Private tech firms intervene
Major tech firms, such as Microsoft, Google, Cloudflare, and Halcyon, which monitor threats aimed at elections both domestically and internationally, are willing to brief election officials on dangers throughout the year, according to the March 27 email. NASS is planning a series on election dangers this year and has already provided briefings from private companies.
Although they can’t match the intelligence-gathering capabilities of organizations like the FBI, National Security Agency, and DHS, officials welcomed increased support from private businesses. According to Hobbs, the distinction is that federal agencies frequently alerted states to dangers before to actual assaults.
For instance, Hobbs claimed that in 2023, the top CISA election security advisor called him in the middle of the night. Unusual activity from a foreign IP address accessing the election part of the Clark County, Washington, website was discovered by the federal agency.
After disconnecting the state’s voter database from the website, Hobbs dispatched a quick reaction team to assist in resolving any vulnerability that the foreign users had exploited. Within 100 hours, the website was operational again.
There would be no such call if the same incident occurred prior to the midterm elections in 2026. Hobbs expressed concern that without the “safety blanket” of federal assistance, election authorities might not even be aware that a cyberattack would occur.
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