US Senator Presses CISA on Election Security Rollbacks

Election Security , Fraud Management & Cybercrime US Senator Presses CISA on Election Security Rollbacks Top Democrat Warns States Are Losing Federal Cyber Defense Support Chris Riotta (@chrisriotta) • May 8, 2026     Credit Eligible Get Permission U.S. Senator Mark Warner, D-Va., speaking to reporters in the Senate on Feb. 11, 2025. (Image: Joshua Sukoff/Shutterstock) A top U.S. Senate Democrat decried shrinking federal support for election security ahead of the November midterms, warning that cuts to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency could leave states without cyber defense or threat intelligence capabilities. See Also: OnDemand | North Korea's Secret IT Army and How to Combat It Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, sent a letter Wednesday to newly confirmed Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin seeking information about the number of personnel still assigned to election security work at CISA and the agency's remaining election security programs. "I am gravely concerned about the lack of critical federal support to state and localities ahead of the 2026 midterms," Warner wrote. Warner accused the Trump administration of undermining years of trust-building between federal agencies and state election officials by firing large portions of CISA's workforce and halting election security work earlier this year. The White House budget request for the coming fiscal year would completely eliminate election security as a CISA mission. "While the states are taking valiant and expensive measures to protect their elections, it is impossible for states to independently obtain intelligence, subject-matter expertise, and real-time incident reporting, and information at the scale and speed required to protect state elections from physical and cyber threats" Warner wrote. The senator requested extensive records from DHS and CISA, including staffing breakdowns for employees currently assigned to election security work, lists of election security assistance requests submitted by states, details about trainings and tabletop exercises conducted since January 2025 and copies of an internal CISA election security review that the agency has not publicly released. Warner also pressed DHS to explain how the administration plans to secure elections while simultaneously proposing to eliminate the agency's election security budget. The latest scrutiny adds to mounting concerns surrounding the future of CISA itself, which has operated since the start of the second Trump presidency without a Senate-confirmed director while facing steep reductions to both its workforce and operational mission (see: No Vote, No Leader: CISA Faces 2026 Without a Director). Current and former officials have separately warned that the agency has already been pushed into a far more reactive cyber defense posture (see: CISA Forced Into Reactive Cyber Posture Amid Shutdown).