Election officials brace for foreign threats — and an unpredictable Washington

By Sean Lyngaas, CNN

(CNN) — With the midterms just days away, the channels for federal officials to communicate foreign threats to election officials are at their weakest since the 2016 vote, numerous sources who work in elections told CNN.

US intelligence officials are tracking familiar efforts by Russia, China and Iran to influence American voters, but cuts to federal programs have hobbled officials’ ability to relay that information to election officials, according to interviews with nearly a dozen election security experts.

A last-minute Department of Homeland Security effort to create an online platform to share threat intelligence doesn’t have anywhere near the same credibility with election officials as in past election cycles, people familiar with the matter said. And in mid-October, a much-anticipated classified briefing for election officials, the first since the 2024 presidential election cycle, was marred by technical difficulties, as federal officials were unable to get the video call to work. (The briefing was rescheduled and occurred without those difficulties.)

DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has been at the center of those eleventh-hour security preparations. CISA took on a big role defending elections in President Donald Trump’s first term, including warning election officials during the 2020 vote about foreign influence operations. But the agency was gutted during Trump’s second term. In recent months, the administration has tried to rebuild its election-security work, though to little effect, sources told CNN.

The administration’s pursuit of election-fraud conspiracies and its willingness to intervene in state-run elections have also left election administrators across the country skeptical of its political motivations and unsure of what it may attempt.

“The relationship between elections officials and the federal government has broken down,” said Ryan Macias, a longtime election security expert and former consultant to CISA. “In many cases, the elections officials don’t even know who to contact when [a cyber or physical] incident occurs.”

That means information-sharing has dried up, said David Becker, another elections expert who works with officials from both parties.

“I don’t know a single election official — Democrat or Republican — who is actively sharing cybersecurity information with the feds this time around,” added Becker, a former Justice Department attorney who is co-founder of the nonprofit Center for Election Innovation and Research. “That’s in stark contrast to the past four federal elections.”

In past elections, CISA has overseen a robust coordination center to communicate threats to election officials and receive information from them on Election Day. The agency has scrambled in recent weeks to try to stand up a new information-sharing channel with election officials.

But the initiative is unlikely to have the traction or trust it had with election officials in the past, multiple sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

A CISA spokesperson told CNN on Friday that the agency had launched an “information-sharing tool” and that “authorized federal, state, and local government partners are granted access daily upon their request.” CISA did not reply to CNN’s questions of how many election officials have accessed the platform.

It all makes for a complicated threat environment for election security officials, who are facing AI-fueled foreign disinformation alongside a federal government that is less predictable and reliable than in elections past, sources told CNN.

“Foreign adversaries haven’t stepped back from our elections,” one former CISA official told CNN. “The federal government has abandoned [election officials]. The election officials I talk to are still worried about foreign interference, but they’re getting no information from the feds, and they are doing their best in filling the gap themselves.”

The feelings of federal neglect aren’t unique to election officials.

The new owner of Dominion Voting Systems, which has election equipment in 26 states, told CNN the lack of cybersecurity support from the Trump administration has been “disappointing.”

Scott Leiendecker, an election industry veteran who bought Dominion last year and rebranded it as Liberty Vote, said the assistance from federal authorities has been lacking compared with past years.

“We haven’t had the same interactions that we’ve had in the past,” Leiendecker said. “I’m hoping that dialogue will be improved in the future.”

After the 2020 election, many of Trump’s allies falsely claimed Dominion’s machines rigged the results. Fox News paid the company more than $787 million in 2023 to settle a defamation case about those conspiracy theories.

“CISA remains fully equipped and prepared to address any national security cyber threats that face our nation,” the CISA spokesperson said in response to questions about election security for this article. “Upon request, CISA provides state and local election officials and election vendors with voluntary, no-cost services, including technical expertise, vulnerability scanning, and resilience-building support,” the spokesperson added.

Foreign threats remain

Among some election security experts, there are questions about whether state and local officials are diverting precious time and resources from preparing for foreign influence threats to account for the potential of interference from the Trump administration, even as US intelligence assessments indicate that America’s adversaries such as Russia remain active in the final stretch of the campaign.

Election officials across the country have spent months, if not years, preparing for credible threats by the Trump administration to intervene in midterm elections. Those necessary preparations mean working with legal counsel to understand the scope and limits of federal authorities over elections and planning for a range of scenarios, said Jennifer Morrell, co-founder of the nonpartisan Elections Group, which offers training and guidance for election officials around the country.

“Meanwhile, foreign interference and cyber threats haven’t gone away,” she told CNN. “My concern is that this added pressure further wears down the people who are our first line of defense.”

With all the preparations ahead of the midterms, even the best-trained election staff are more vulnerable when they’re tired, according to Morrell, a former election official in Colorado and Utah. “That’s when mistakes can happen and phishing attempts are more likely to succeed.”

Some election officials told CNN their work preparing for foreign threats remains the same.

“Our office has not shifted in its focus or approach to preventing foreign interference in our election process,” Lindsey Bachman, a spokesperson or the New Mexico secretary of state’s office, told CNN.

As in prior election cycles, Russia is trying to use disinformation to denigrate Democratic candidates in the midterms, while China is focused on down-ballot candidates who are seen as anti-China, according to people briefed on US intelligence assessments.

Federal officials are also keeping an eye on Russia-aligned “hacktivists” who used cheap cyberattacks to knock election-related websites offline ahead of the 2022 midterms.

In recent weeks, suspected Russian operatives have posted a wave of AI-altered videos on X attacking Democratic candidates in the final weeks of the midterms, according to private firms that track the activity. One such video includes a fabricated claim of sexual assault against James Talarico, the Democratic Senate nominee in Texas.

“The Russians are kind of throwing everything out there … to generate a sense of chaos and anarchy,” Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told reporters last month. “The Chinese … have always been extremely targeted in their influence efforts. We have no reason to believe that they’re not continuing that activity.”

US officials are also wary of Iran’s hackers and trolls, who have a reputation for being unpredictable and brazen. It’s the first major US election since the US-Iran war began in February.

In 2020, Tehran sought to undermine Trump’s election prospects through “a multi-pronged covert influence campaign,” according to a US intelligence assessment. That included an aggressive effort to intimidate voters by impersonating the far-right Proud Boys group.

Foreign operatives are sometimes less active during midterm cycles compared with presidential elections, and Tehran has been relatively quiet so far in the midterms.

Nonetheless, Himes said, Iran understands “that they have a massive lever right now to influence the election, and they’re using it. And that of course is the price of oil.”

Crude oil remained over $100 a barrel on Friday, and Americans have faced months of high gas prices amid lingering security concerns in the Middle East.

One question mark hanging over Iran’s approach to the US midterms has been the state of the war, which Trump has threatened to reignite.

Iran’s hackers and trolls are “very opportunistic” but also “reactionary,” said an analyst for New York-based threat intelligence firm Graphika who requested anonymity for security reasons. A real or perceived threat from the US to Iran around the election could trigger Iranian operatives to be more active in the midterms, the analyst said.

Questions on federal intent

There is also a deficit of experts in elections at the federal level, as multiple former election officials who worked at CISA were forced out in 2025.

On top of that, the language used by some Trump political appointees to describe security weaknesses in election infrastructure has betrayed a lack of understanding of how elections work, according to experts. That has not instilled confidence in election officials that the feds are on top of the threats.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told CISA employees Tuesday that the midterms will be secure while making vague, unsubstantiated claims about vulnerabilities in election systems.

“Our job is to make sure that it’s a legal ballot and it’s counted,” Mullin said, according to a recording of his remarks shared with CNN. “Our job is to make sure there’s not vulnerabilities where bad actors can get into the system and change the vote.”

Election officials at the local level, not federal officials, count votes.

Mullin also cast doubt on past elections, alleging there had been a “tremendous amount of harm” done by unnamed “vulnerabilities” and “voting procedures” in elections. He did not provide any evidence.

Asked about Mullin’s remarks, a DHS spokesperson told CNN: “State and local election officials administer elections, determine ballot validity under state law, and count ballots. CISA helps protect the systems and infrastructure they rely on so they can carry out that work securely and without disruption.”

A White House task force run by conservative journalist John Solomon has over several months released hundreds of declassified documents, some of which Trump has used to cast doubt on election integrity.

Election officials who previously shared cybersecurity information with federal officials in confidence are essentially being “re-victimized” through the White House document releases because the information is being used to question the integrity of elections, argued Michael Moore, the chief information security officer for Arizona’s secretary of state office.

Solomon said in a statement to CNN: “These are matters of significant public importance and well worthy of the transparency they received from the White House.”

“If we politicize threat intelligence sharing, people are going to stop doing it,” Moore told CNN.

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CNN’s Marshall Cohen contributed to this report.