Overview
- The ProPublica report published Monday says DHS political appointees instructed the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to acquire a voting machine, attempt to compromise it, and pass the findings to the White House.
- The appointees told CISA not to notify the machine’s manufacturer if flaws were found, a step that departs from normal vulnerability-disclosure practices that aim to fix bugs rather than hide them.
- CISA career staff repeatedly resisted the order and the operation was never carried out, in part because specialists who could have done the work had been laid off under the administration’s Department of Government Efficiency reductions.
- Since early 2025 the administration has cut roughly one-third of CISA staff and proposed deeper budget cuts for 2027, and election officials say the agency was largely absent during key midterm security preparations.
- Democratic lawmakers have called for investigations into CISA’s capacity and use of federal election-security funds, the White House defended the president, and DHS/CISA have not provided a full public response to the reporting.