COLUMN: With CISA Disarmed, Election Overseers Left to Face Washington Alone

"I don’t trust you"

The remark was made during a federal teleconference, less than 90 days before the midterm elections. Adrian Fontes, Arizona’s secretary of state, was addressing officials from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. According to a Votebeat report cited by Salon, he told them he didn’t trust them. Fontes then confirmed the source of his anger: the administration, he said, was no longer working with the states, but against them.

A rift voiced aloud

Institutional calls are meant to be neutral in tone. This one laid bare a rift. Election officials who had come seeking intelligence on threats, specialized testing, and preparedness exercises say they received little reassurance and no concrete support for November. CISA did not respond to Salon’s questions about the call.

This was not a matter of protocol. It was an election official telling the agency responsible for protecting him that the bond of trust had been broken.

The statement does not prove an attack

No public evidence in this case establishes that a voting system will be compromised in November. No imminent national emergency has been demonstrated. We must hold firmly to this line, because election security suffers just as much from alarmism as it does from negligence. But the absence of a proven attack does not make the lack of preparation acceptable.

You don’t judge a firewall after the fire; you judge it beforehand, when no one yet knows if the flames will come.

An Agency Born from a Lesson

CISA was created in 2018, during Donald Trump’s first term. Its mission extends beyond elections: it protects critical infrastructure, from energy grids to public systems. But voting has become one of its most sensitive areas, because a modern election depends on databases, communications, vendors, buildings, and thousands of vulnerable individuals.

Strength Through Federation

U.S. elections are administered by states and local governments. This decentralization limits the possibility that a single attack could take down the entire system. It also creates disparities in capacity. A small jurisdiction does not necessarily have an intelligence team, ransomware specialists, or the resources to organize a national exercise.

CISA was not tasked with running the election. Its role was to connect those who run it to a federal capability that no single county can replicate on its own.

The role still described in the brochures

The agency’s official library remains filled with tools: physical checklists, registration data protection, multi-factor authentication, incident response, tabletop exercises, swatting prevention, and business continuity. These resources are presented as voluntary and free. On paper, the framework still exists.

The problem isn’t that nothing remains on the website; it’s knowing who responds when the situation escalates into a crisis.

The rollback didn’t start on Monday

The August call is not an isolated incident. Since Trump’s return to the White House, the administration has scaled back CISA’s election-related functions, removed experienced specialists, and suspended some of the work. CNN reports that election advisors at the ten regional offices were forced to leave and that the remaining employees were reassigned.

Months of Silence

Salon describes more than a year of near-silence before this attempt to resume dialogue. CNN reports that, in vast regions, election officials received no election-specific support during the 2026 cycle. Capacity doesn’t disappear just because its budget drops to zero. It disappears when the phone stops ringing, when the familiar face has left the agency, when intelligence arrives too late.

Washington didn’t simply downsize a team. It squandered preparation time—the one resource that no last-minute funding can make up for.

Staff as Institutional Memory

The specialists who have left take with them relational knowledge: which offices need help, which vendors use which systems, who can relay an alert without wasting a day. An employee can be reassigned. The trust built up over election cycles cannot be instantly recreated.

An institution is not its organizational chart; it is the speed with which its people can find one another when everything goes off the rails.

What the States Have Lost

CISA’s services had a tangible presence. Classified briefings connected national intelligence with administrators. Vulnerability tests examined equipment. Drills simulated a bomb threat, a system failure, a disinformation campaign, or a cyber incident. On-site assessments helped polling places identify their blind spots.

What the Private Sector Can Replace

A state can purchase a technical test, hire a cybersecurity provider, recruit an IT employee, or pay for a subscription to a sharing platform. Several have done so. Former CISA employees are also offering their expertise through other channels. This adaptation is real, and it dispels the convenient narrative of a country that is entirely defenseless.

States are not standing still. They are improvising, funding, hiring, and cooperating. Their resilience deserves better than to be used as an excuse for federal neglect.

What the Private Sector Cannot Replace

A vendor does not have the big picture that intelligence agencies do. A nonprofit organization cannot declassify a foreign threat. A county cannot aggregate intelligence from fifty states. The most serious loss, therefore, is not a tool; it is the ability to transform national intelligence into a local warning.

You can buy a test. You cannot buy the federal eye that Washington has chosen to keep half-closed.

Time is of the essence

In late July, the administration promised a new election security plan within 30 days. It said it wanted to present the available cyber and physical resources to the states. Acting Director Nick Andersen assured that CISA would provide threat intelligence, technical expertise, and vulnerability analysis.

A promise that came in the home stretch

With less than 100 days until the election, mail-in ballots were already on their way. Officials quoted by CNN explained that it was too late to substantially change their protocols. Election preparation doesn’t begin when the offices open. It’s built up over months: contracts, drills, communication chains, tests, backups, and training.

A plan released just in time for the cameras may come too late for the servers, election workers, and procedures that are already set in stone.

The Call as a Make-Up

Steve Hobbs, Washington’s Secretary of State, nevertheless called the call a positive step. His judgment matters. A damaged relationship can begin to heal through an imperfect exchange. But he, too, called for sustained commitment—not attention that resurfaces only as a major election approaches.

Getting back in the room is necessary. Pretending we never left would be a second mistake.

Coercion Through the Wallet

As technical support was scaled back, the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA attached new election-related conditions to homeland security funding. A coalition of 25 states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit on July 23. Among other things, it challenges the withholding of 20% of certain grants until the states prove their compliance.

Five Stringent Conditions

The complaint details requirements regarding the transition to hand-marked ballots, a 5% manual audit, the reconciliation of voter lists with ballots, the verification of registered voters’ citizenship through SAVE, and the verification of election workers’ citizenship. The administration presents these measures as safeguards for integrity. The states filing the complaint argue that DHS and FEMA are overstepping their authority.

The paradox is stark: the federal government withdraws voluntary assistance, then uses emergency funds to impose its own electoral framework.

A complaint is not a ruling

The states’ arguments remain legal allegations. No final judgment cited in the case file has yet resolved this dispute. FEMA has defended common-sense measures intended, in its view, to protect the elections. This response must be taken into account in the analysis, even if its partisan language undermines the promise of cooperation.

The alleged coercion must be adjudicated; the financial threat, however, is already spelled out in the contested terms.

More Than $740 Million at Stake

According to the complaint, the plaintiff states are at risk of losing more than $740 million in funds from the Homeland Security Grant Program for fiscal year 2026. A 20% withholding would amount to at least $148 million. These programs are designed to prepare jurisdictions for terrorist acts and other threats. The dispute therefore extends beyond voting machines.

Security Held Hostage by Security

The states argue that Washington is using funds intended for disaster and terrorism preparedness to force certain electoral administration decisions. The administration responds that elections themselves constitute critical infrastructure and that the conditions enhance their security. The two positions may seem similar. The difference lies in the exercise of power: to assist, to recommend, or to withhold funds until compliance is achieved.

When a security grant becomes a tool for political discipline, every future emergency carries the cost of the present conflict.

The cost trickles down to the local level

States do not vote in the abstract. Counties rent facilities, train workers, secure networks, and pay vendors. A federal withholding or a discontinued service turns into a local bill. Taxpayers pay to replace what their federal taxes were already funding.

Washington cuts funding at the top; the shortfall reappears at the bottom, where no one has the luxury of postponing election day.

The Threat of Criminal Charges in the Room

Fontes linked her mistrust to threats of prosecution against election officials. Steve Simon, from Minnesota, denounced politicians who suggest that administrators could face jail time if they do not carry out the administration’s wishes. This climate changes the nature of a security call.

From Partner to Suspect

A local official must be able to report a vulnerability, an error, or an intrusion without fear that the information will be turned into a political weapon. Cybersecurity depends on prompt disclosure. If every incident can be used as evidence of disloyalty, organizations learn to remain silent, consult their lawyers, and delay action.

Criminalizing in public discourse those from whom operational transparency is demanded is to create the very silence in which real threats thrive.

The law must remain the law

Knowingly authorizing an illegal vote may fall under criminal provisions. No public office grants immunity. But a general threat—detached from any established fact and directed against an entire profession—is not the neutral application of the law. It is pressure. The difference between accountability and intimidation is measured by the precision of the accusation.

A well-founded prosecution protects the election; a vague threat tells its guardians that they are already guilty.

Vulnerability Is Not Fraud

A system can be vulnerable without having been compromised. A database may contain an error without proving a conspiracy. A non-citizen may be registered by mistake without having voted. This distinction is vital. The U.S. electoral debate too often conflates risk, incident, error, fraud, and outcome to the point of casting suspicion on any nuance.

The New Jersey Figures

The governor of New Jersey announced that more than 6,000 non-citizens had been registered due to a software error and that nearly 400 had voted. These facts require correction and investigation. They do not, on their own, prove a coordinated national operation. Actual administrative errors should neither be denied nor turned into a license to invent a conspiracy.

Democracy is defended by upholding two truths: a registration error is serious, and a registration error is not automatically organized fraud.

The Controversial SAVE System

The states’ complaint asserts that the federal SAVE system does not verify citizenship reliably enough for its mandated use and cites a previous court ruling regarding its modification. Again, this is a specific legal dispute. Hastily imposing a contested tool on all voter rolls can create its own errors, including those affecting eligible voters.

A net full of holes does not become secure simply because it is expanded to cover the entire country.

2020: The Poison That Won’t Go Away

Donald Trump continues to claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him. This false claim is not just a harmless partisan memory. It is shaping the institutions of 2026: the former director of CISA was targeted after contradicting the presidential narrative, the agency’s functions were scaled back, and electoral integrity has become the battle cry in a power struggle.

The Punishment for Disagreement

A security agency must be able to tell the president that a claim is false. If such candor becomes seen as disloyalty, threat analysis is turned on its head: it no longer seeks the truth, but rather what confirms the leader’s narrative. An institution disciplined in this way can retain its logos, websites, and acronyms while losing its fundamental purpose.

Electoral security begins with the freedom to name a fact that displeases those in power. Without it, everything else becomes mere window dressing.

Doubt as a Strategy

The Guardian reports a proliferation of rhetoric, declassified documents, and disputed figures regarding non-citizen voting. Experts fear this trend may be paving the way for an attempt to expand federal control. The administration rejects this interpretation and says it aims to restore trust. But trust built on undisclosed methods and threats is not restored—it is demanded.

You don’t cure mistrust by forcing the country to swallow yet another dose of mistrust, stamped with the executive branch’s seal of approval.

A State of Emergency on the Horizon

In early August, when asked about the possibility of declaring a national emergency related to the elections, Trump did not rule out the idea. Allies such as Steve Bannon have called for it. Legal experts cited by The Guardian believe that a state of emergency would not allow the president to override the constitutional limits that largely entrust the administration of the vote to the states.

Power Does Not Arise from the Word “Emergency”

A proclamation can activate certain powers provided for by law. It does not magically create general electoral authority. No president has ever used a national emergency to take control of an election. The courts would remain an obstacle. Saying this is not downplaying the political risk; it is refusing to present a hypothetical scenario as a fait accompli.

A state of emergency is dangerous not so much because of what it certainly authorizes, but because of what an executive might attempt before the courts stop it.

Judicial Time and Election Time

A lawsuit can block an executive order. But an election has a fixed date. Confusion sown just days before the vote, the deployment of agents, or a contested seizure can have an effect before a court issues its ruling. That is why institutional preparedness cannot be left until the last minute.

The law may prevail after the election, but it may still come too late to restore trust.

States are patching up the system

Vermont described a system held together with duct tape and bungee cords. The image is apt, and it sums up a broader reality. States have engaged vendors, recruited staff, organized their own drills, and strengthened collaboration among themselves. Iowa, led by a Republican secretary of state, says it has replicated practices learned through federal partnerships.

Resilience Comes in Many Forms

Republican officials emphasize their states’ autonomy. Democrats denounce the federal withdrawal. Not all describe the same degree of disengagement. Some jurisdictions continue to receive intelligence or network monitoring. Others say they no longer receive specific election support. This diversity protects against oversimplification, but not against the problem itself.

The country is neither completely abandoned nor adequately supported. It has become unevenly protected as a single national day approaches.

Bans on Private Campaign Financing

In several states, laws passed after 2020 limit or ban private campaign financing. They address a legitimate concern about the influence of donors. They also complicate the acceptance of free services offered by former CISA experts. When the federal government withdraws, private alternatives are therefore not always legally available.

The door has been closed to the private sector without any guarantee that the public sector will remain in the room.

The fact that bothers the anti-Trump camp

Not all local officials agree with Fontes. Hobbs saw the appeal as an encouraging step. Some states have retained certain services. Republican elected officials say they have never depended on Washington and have developed their own capabilities. And some of the requirements advocated by DHS—audits, reconciliation, paperwork—may warrant serious debate.

A good idea can become a bad tool

A voter-verifiable ballot, a robust audit, or an accurate voter list are not illegitimate concerns. The problem arises when Washington imposes a uniform framework through financial threats, without respecting existing systems, the needs of voters with disabilities, state methods, or the limits set by Congress.

Rejecting coercion does not mean rejecting security. It means that even a defensible measure must be carried out through legal authority and a reliable method.

Autonomy Requires Resources

States administer elections. They must therefore invest, recruit, and not delegate their moral responsibility to a federal agency. But constitutional autonomy does not preclude partnership. It makes it more valuable: the federal government shares a capability, while the local government retains decision-making authority.

Decentralization is a defense only if each center has enough strength to hold its ground.

What Washington Must Do Now

The solution does not require federalizing the vote. It requires restoring CISA’s specific mission: actionable intelligence, technical assessments, exercises, coordination, and support upon request. The promised plan must specify personnel, services, timelines, and points of contact. States need to know what they will receive before discovering what is missing during an incident.

Separate Aid from Obedience

Cyber and physical support should not depend on a secretary of state’s partisan alignment or their acceptance of controversial reforms. Funding conditions must follow congressional authority and remain tied to the purpose of the grants. The courts will decide the current case. The administration can, however, stop treating local partners as collective suspects right now.

A security agency does not rebuild trust by demanding obedience. It rebuilds trust by delivering predictable, consistent, and verifiable expertise.

Publish What Can Be Published

Without exposing vulnerabilities, CISA can make public the number of assessments offered, response times, regional coverage, and the nature of the exercises. Congress can exercise bipartisan oversight. States can publish their continuity plans and audit procedures. Meaningful transparency takes the wind out of the sails of conspiracy theories.

Trust cannot be decreed. It is built through evidence of work simple enough to withstand propaganda.

November will wait for no one

The calendar marches on regardless of organizational charts, lawsuits, or presidential grudges. Election officials will prepare the machines, voter rolls, polling places, and communications. Thousands of workers will do what the state asks of them. Most voters will cast their ballots without seeing the layers of safeguards that make this ordinary act possible.

Don’t Predict a Catastrophe

It would be irresponsible to predict a compromise that the facts do not support. U.S. systems are decentralized; states are preparing; and resources still exist. The danger is not a certainty of collapse. It is a reduced margin of safety at a time when rhetoric, threats, and tensions are rising.

The most disturbing truth is not that the election will be stolen. It is that Washington is weakening those who must prove that it was not.

The Last Line of Defense

Adrian Fontes said he does not trust CISA. That statement should not please either side. An administration can win a confrontation with a secretary of state, withhold funding, replace an expert, and dominate a conference call. It gains nothing if, on the day a real threat arises, the guardians of the vote hesitate to call.

November doesn’t need an agency that demands trust. It needs an agency that earns it before the first ballot is counted.

Signed, Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist’s Transparency Box

Editorial Positioning

I am not a journalist, but a columnist and analyst. My expertise lies in observing and analyzing the geopolitical, economic, and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work consists of dissecting political strategies, understanding global economic trends, contextualizing the decisions of international actors, and offering analytical perspectives on the transformations that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim to possess the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which is limited to factual reporting. I strive for analytical clarity, rigorous interpretation, and a deep understanding of the complex issues that affect us all. My role is to make sense of the facts, place them within their historical and strategic context, and offer a critical analysis of events.

Methodology and Sources

This text respects the fundamental distinction between verified facts and interpretive analyses. The methodological rule is consistent: factual information is published only if it is supported by a verifiable source, and the sources actually used in this article are listed under “Sources,” never here.

Categories of primary sources used by the publication, where applicable: official press releases from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organizations, and dispatches from recognized international news agencies.

Types of secondary sources: specialized publications, internationally recognized news media, analyses from established research institutions, and reports from sector-specific organizations.

When an article cites statistical, economic, or geopolitical data, it comes from data-producing institutions (intergovernmental organizations, central banks, national statistical institutes), and the specific institution is listed under “Sources.”

Nature of the Analysis

The analyses, interpretations, and perspectives presented in the analytical sections of this article constitute a critical and contextual synthesis based on available information, observed trends, and expert commentary cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, contextualize them within the framework of contemporary geopolitical and economic dynamics, and give them coherent meaning within the broader narrative of the transformations shaping our era. These analyses reflect expertise developed through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a situation documented as of its publication date, not a prediction: subsequent developments may alter these perspectives. No updates are promised in advance; when an article is corrected or supplemented, the change is dated within the text.

COLUMN: With CISA Disarmed, Election Overseers Left to Face Washington Alone