States don't expect feds to reliably share election threats: Exclusive

State election officials do not expect the federal government to reliably share election threat information during the midterm elections, according to internal National Association of Secretaries of State documents obtained exclusively by USA TODAY.

A March 27 memo from the bipartisan association says "federal agencies are not seen by states as reliable or sufficient options for being the national hub for election threat information sharing." It adds "states do not expect these entities to reliably share the information they receive."

The concern reflects election officials' broader loss of confidence following staffing cuts, funding reductions and organizational changes at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Since 2018, that agency has been a primary conduit for election security briefings and cyber assistance.

For months, election officials have worked across party and state lines with nonprofits and technology companies to build alternative channels for sharing intelligence and cybersecurity support. Several officials said that effort is unlikely to match the federal system it is replacing.

"I think we will make it through 2026. I think it's sufficient, but it's certainly not equal," Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, said. "You're talking about the real potential that something might be able to slip through the cracks. There's a lot more cracks than there used to be."

The March 27 memo summarized recent meetings between the National Association of Secretaries of State and National Association of State Election Directors that included threat intelligence teams from Microsoft and Google.

The National Association of Secretaries of State's Republican and Democratic leaders signed off on the memo.

“A brief review but looks fine to me,” Republican Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson, the association's president, responded on March 27.

Staff for Democratic Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, the president-elect, responded positively March 30.

The memo and other documents were obtained through a records request by Property of the People. The national security transparency nonprofit shared them exclusively with USA TODAY.

“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,” said Ryan Shapiro, executive director of Property of the People.

On March 11, Watson and his association's executive board urged the White House to continue providing threat information to state and local election officials.

In a statement provided by his staff, Watson said "there is ongoing uncertainty about federal service availability for the 2026 election year, particularly when it comes to election threat information sharing. I’ve been in touch with the DOJ and the acting director of CISA over the last couple of days and am hopeful those conversations will continue."

CISA responded to a request to address the concerns with a statement summarizing the agency's responsibilities.

"We are committed to supporting state and local elections officials to protect election infrastructure and safeguard our democracy," it said in part.

The agency did not respond to requests for examples of work it has done with states in 2026.

A federal pullback

Over the last year, Fontes said, the support both Republican and Democratic-led states have received from CISA has dropped significantly.

"We're not getting any information, we're not getting any support, we're not getting any help," he said. "CISA basically has been eviscerated as far as their support of election administration is concerned."

USA TODAY contacted nearly a dozen Democratic and Republican secretaries of states for this article. None of the Republicans were made available for interviews, but staff for two of them confirmed the federal government has dropped much of the pre-election coordination it once did with states.

Since Trump signed it into law in 2018, CISA has become a conduit for the federal government to distribute election security resources, including threat-awareness training and secret briefings about foreign attempts to interfere with elections. It also provides cyber and in-person security assistance and real-time monitoring of election-related websites for possible attacks.

But the Department of Homeland Security let go a third of CISA employees in 2025 through buyouts, early retirements, forced reassignments and sweeping layoffs. Then it eliminated millions of dollars in funding for multi-state and elections infrastructure information-sharing programs. The moves effectively dismantled the infrastructure meant to inform election officials of potential cyber threats. CISA still does not have a Senate-confirmed director.

Since returning to office, Trump has moved to overhaul American election administration with calls to "nationalize" elections. Meanwhile, his administration has sued states for access to voter rolls and the FBI has seized materials from the 2020 election in Georgia and Arizona. He's talked about sending the National Guard or U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to the polls, prompting states to train election workers on what to do.

The moves have many election officials of both parties leery about trusting the federal government, said David Becker, founder and executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, a nonpartisan nonprofit that works with election officials to bolster election security and integrity.

“I don't know of a single jurisdiction that is looking to the federal government as a leader or an expert, or a partner. If anything, they're preparing for the opposite,” Becker said.

Information-sharing efforts

State officials say nonprofits and private-sector partners have become increasingly important as federal support has receded.

The National Association of Secretaries of State, which has long been a place for secretaries to discuss election security threats, has stepped up its efforts this year, said spokesman John Milhofer.

Another internal email sent March 30 says the association doesn't want to overpromise what it can do compared to what the federal government has done in the past.

"We are basically recommending sharing everything with everyone depending on each state’s comfort level with each entity. Unfortunately, I think NASS and NASED are the only options for reliably sharing with other states this year, but we can’t do much to help with incident response (besides making connections)," it says.

Fontes said states officials have leaned on their relationships with one another as well as internal guardrails they had already built.

"It's hurt and it's cost us a lot of time and a lot of energy to try and put stuff back together," he said.

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, said states are shouldering costs once covered by the federal government and often learn about cyber incidents through news reporting rather than federal briefings.

"They've continued to send the message that the states are on their own," Bellows said.

For example, there have been no classified briefings for election officials about whether Iran is stepping up efforts to disrupt the election during the ongoing war, she said.

Working with private sector and nonprofit partners should help fill the gaps, she said, "but there's no question that this is really a function that the federal government should be providing."

Hobbs and other state election officials said they feel effectively on their own in a time when multiple nation-states are pouring untold resources into attempting to interfere with U.S. elections.

"They're shoving all these resources into doing that and we have to fight separately. Fifty states and territories are going to fight separately. We try to get unified as much as possible. We're doing the best we can, but it would be nice to have the government there with another added layer of protection," Hobbs said.

Private tech companies step in

The March 27 email also says major tech companies – including Microsoft, Google, Cloudflare and Halcyon, which track threats targeting elections both domestically and globally – are willing to brief election officials on threats throughout the year. NASS already offered briefings from private companies and plans a series on election threats this year.

Officials welcomed expanded support from private companies but said they cannot replicate the intelligence-gathering capabilities of agencies such as the FBI, National Security Agency and DHS. Hobbs said the difference is that federal agencies often warned states of threats before attacks occurred.

For example, Hobbs said he got a call in the middle of the night from the head of CISA in 2023. The federal agency had detected unusual activity from a foreign IP address accessing the Clark County, Washington, website, including the election section.

Hobbs disconnected the state's voter database from the site and sent a quick reaction team to help fix whatever gap the foreign users had slipped through. The website was back up within 100 hours.

If the same thing happened ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, there would be no such call. Hobbs said he fears that a cyberattack could happen, and election officials wouldn't even know without the "safety blanket" of federal help.