"My thought was they could keep it in their back pocket to invalidate any [election] results they don’t like," said one former administration official, describing how political appointees pressed the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to secretly acquire and hack a voting machine.
A secret request to hack a voting machine
According to two former administration officials with knowledge of the request, political appointees at the Department of Homeland Security asked CISA to procure a voting machine, examine it, and report findings back to the White House. The proposal included an explicit instruction not to alert the voting machine company if flaws were discovered—contrary to CISA’s standard practice—and alarmed career staffers who feared they were being drawn into political interference.
CISA employees repeatedly told the appointees the request was impossible in part because agents capable of carrying out such an operation had recently been laid off by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative, the former officials said. The political appointees eventually stopped pressing the agency.
CISA’s workforce losses and budget pressures
The request arrived amid a broad staffing and funding contraction at CISA. In Trump’s second term the administration laid off or pushed out more than 1,000 CISA employees, shrinking the agency by about one-third, the reporting says. The president’s 2027 budget proposal would cut the agency’s funding by another $700 million and could necessitate about 900 additional layoffs.
Those personnel reductions hit election-focused teams especially hard: employees who had run penetration testing, briefed secretaries of state, and managed sensors and threat intelligence were among those removed, according to former CISA staff and other officials quoted in the record.
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See what we buildBroken trust with state election officials
For years CISA’s work depended on a confidential information-sharing relationship with states and voting-machine vendors. Source accounts describe that trust as frayed or broken: the Trump administration declassified and published troves of records, including material states had provided to CISA under assurances of privacy. Geoff Hale, who worked on CISA’s elections team until last year, said releasing raw logs and communications betrayed partners’ trust.
State officials told ProPublica that in 2025 and into mid-September 2026 CISA was effectively nonexistent during critical planning stages for the midterms. “There is a difference between deprioritizing and being nonexistent,” said Ryan Macias, who has consulted for CISA. Multiple state election officials said they received no assistance and no explanation for CISA’s absence.
Operational impacts: sensors, penetration tests, and sensitive data handling
Former employees and outside experts said the agency stopped funding sensor technology that monitored election networks, laid off personnel who conducted penetration testing and tabletop exercises, and curtailed secret-level intelligence briefings that had previously warned states about foreign actors. One former senior CISA employee said the groups affected “couldn’t even order a pizza” under the DOGE microscope.
Separately, the administration’s handling of sensitive data raised alarms. The reporting cites instances in which CISA published private data on GitHub and where acting Director Madhu Gottumukkala uploaded records to an unsecured generative AI service, despite DHS restrictions. A CISA spokesperson told Politico that Gottumukkala’s use of the technology was allowed for a “short-term and limited” purpose; a CISA spokesperson also told Brian Krebs there was no indication sensitive GitHub data had been compromised.
How state election officials, CISA leadership, and voting-machine vendors are responding
- State election officials: Several states have taken action to replace federal monitoring and detection—paying for sensor technology themselves and meeting privately with vendors to plan contingencies should the federal government seize machines, according to the reporting. Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said CISA effectively “cut us off and left us on our own.”
- CISA leadership: The agency published a 13-page security plan on Sept. 24 stating it had “recommitted to its statutory mission.” Acting leadership, including Nick Andersen—who many state officials met for the first time in August—attributed lapses partly to a federal government shutdown, though states said preparations were already too late.
- Voting-machine vendors and contractors: Vendors who previously cooperated with federal efforts have grown wary after raw logs and communications were published. Mojave Research Inc., a contractor that examined seized machines in Puerto Rico, stopped receiving contract renewals after its work failed to substantiate claims tied to 2020; the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said Mojave’s work ceased because it had completed its contract.
Democratic lawmakers have called for an investigation into CISA’s ability to perform its mission and to account for why federal funds have not supported election security as Congress directed. For now, many state officials say they will proceed without the federal partner they once relied on—even as CISA warns of recommitment and publishes a last-minute plan. The central question left by the record is concrete and immediate: after widespread layoffs, data releases that eroded confidence, and a narrowly averted push to have CISA hack a voting machine, will states trust CISA again in time for the midterms?
