2026-07-31T10:00:26.873Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/31/politics/trump-admin-rebuild-election-security-months-after-gutting-it
在拆除旨在保护美国选举的联邦体系后，特朗普政府如今表示已有重建计划——距离选举日不到100天，且距邮寄选票开始仅数周。
在解雇众多经验最资深的选举安全专家一年后，一家关键的联邦网络安全机构目前正将剩余员工重新分配到新岗位。
据美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）获得的一份政府内部计划摘要显示，该机构表示新的联络官预计将与州和地方民选官员“建立信任关系”。
本月早些时候美国官员通过电子邮件发送给国会山工作人员的这份备忘录，透露了比特朗普政府此前公开披露的更多细节，内容为特朗普政府计划如何重建其选举安全运作，此时唐纳德·特朗普总统和国土安全部部长马克韦恩·马利纳要求全面改革。
负责此项工作的国土安全部下属机构——网络安全与基础设施安全局（CISA）表示，将采用其在世界杯期间使用过的安全机制来保护中期选举。根据7月17日的邮件内容，该机构还承诺在30天内公布一份公开计划，“为各州“列出网络和实体安全资源”。
但选举官员和无党派专家警告称，此时对他们的安全协议进行任何重大调整都为时已晚，且他们怀疑该机构人手空虚的 workforce 甚至无法在中期选举前为各州提供基础支持。
据一名美国官员透露，在本月一次闭门简报会上，一名最近被分配到选举安全部门的CISA官员告诉国会工作人员，该机构人员严重不足，无法在中期选举前提供常规选举安全援助。
由于CISA数月来基本保持沉默，各州已经自行行动起来，拼凑出新的安全措施，以填补特朗普政府破坏该机构选举相关职能后留下的缺口。
州和地方官员紧缩紧张的预算，与私人网络安全供应商签订合同，或聘请额外的IT人员在内部完成这项工作。他们正在开展类似CISA此前主办的桌面演练，以模拟应对安全紧急情况的方案。他们还不得不重新调整各州之间的信息共享流程——这曾是破坏选举系统企图的预警系统，而州和地方政府如今需为这个联邦政府曾免费提供的平台付费。
“这一切此前都由联邦机构提供支持，”佛蒙特州务卿莎拉·科普兰·汉扎斯告诉CNN。“现在我们得想办法共享这些——用点胶带，你懂的，可能再加一两根弹力绳。”
尽管如此，州和地方选举官员仍有信心，他们已采取必要措施填补漏洞，确保2026年中期选举的基础设施安全。但他们承认，无法复制联邦政府跨多个联邦机构协调情报收集和分析的能力，以全面了解新兴威胁的全国视角。
这种跨政府协作的优势在首届特朗普政府确认伊朗势力试图影响2020年选举时显现出来。据选举界的多位消息人士透露，CISA与情报机构合作，发挥了关键作用，向选举官员展示了这些信息，使用他们可以据此采取行动。选举官员与CISA及其联邦调查局 counterparts 同僚共享的信息，帮助联邦政府了解伊朗人的企图。
当时的CISA局长克里斯·克赖布斯与当时的国家情报总监约翰·拉特克利夫一同宣布了这场影响行动——马利纳在他和特朗普声称政府掩盖伊朗企图时，省略了这一事件。
在给CNN的一份声明中，CISA代理局长尼克·安德森表示，即将出台的选举安全计划“将进一步向各州提供所需的网络资源，包括有关免费自愿服务的信息，例如威胁信息共享、技术专长、漏洞扫描和其他风险缓解支持。
内华达州务卿弗朗西斯科·阿吉拉尔是民主党人，他告诉CNN，在选举准备季的这个阶段，联邦政府推出这样的计划“为时已晚”——这一观点得到了其他从事选举安全工作的人士的认同。
“我们的准备工作已经到了选举周期的这个阶段。这不仅仅关乎选举日。2016年俄罗斯人就是在选举日之前开始行动的，2020年伊朗人也是如此，”前CISA选举安全官员、现为民主与技术中心访问研究员杰夫·黑尔说道。“人们应该意识到，我们已经有14到18个月的信息缺口。”
近十年来，在2017年即将卸任的奥巴马政府决定将选举列为国家关键基础设施的一个分支后，CISA通过10个地区办事处与选举官员建立了关系，这些办事处最终配备了选举顾问，可协助向投票官员调配资源。
这些资源包括桌面演练、对选举系统的网络防御压力测试以及列出潜在威胁的情报咨询。2020年选举后，对选举官员的骚扰和威胁更加突出，选举的实体安全成为重点。应地方办事处的要求，CISA官员会对投票地点或其他选举场所的实体安全进行评估。
但特朗普重返白宫后，CISA的规模大幅缩减——他比以往任何时候都坚信深层政府在选举中操纵他，而他的政府对该机构进行了大幅削减。这些地区选举专家被解雇，包括黑尔在内的其他专注于选举的CISA员工也被解雇，其余CISA专家的大部分选举相关工作都被搁置。
尽管人员和运作遭到破坏，但据与选举官员合作的人士表示，CISA向选举官员提供的服务并未完全停止，他们称这种支持充其量是零散的。少数几个州的选举官员能够获得偶尔的援助——有时是通过在安全评估请求中不提及这是针对选举特定职能的请求。CISA帮助州和地方政府解决安全问题的更大使命仍在继续。
尽管如此，在该国大部分地区，选举官员在本次选举周期未从CISA获得任何选举特定支持。
相反，选举官员转而依赖“我们此前从事这项工作的人之间组建的“杂牌顾问和协调员团队”，亚利桑那州务卿阿德里安·丰塞斯说道，他是民主党人。
例如，在前几届政府下，联邦政府为全国选举官员使用的信息共享门户支付费用。
这个名为选举基础设施信息共享与分析中心的门户网站仍在运营，但现在采用付费订阅模式，导致44个州的会员资格参差不齐。在一些州，州选举办公室为地方选举管理员支付访问该平台付费，而在其他州，地方办公室自行购买会员资格。
“很高兴现在就做，而不是几年后”
选举界的一线希望是，在特朗普摧毁该机构之前，他们与CISA安全专家合作了近十年的经验。
“我对CISA撤资的主要看法是，我很高兴现在就做，而不是几年后，”一名与选举官员合作的人士要求匿名，以免破坏与政府的工作关系。
凭借这些专业知识，州官员强调了他们适应形势变化的能力，一些共和党选举官员认为，联邦政府的撤退并不像有时所说的那样是一场危机。
“我们获取了各种联邦伙伴关系共享的资源和知识，并努力确保我们今后能够复制这些成果，”爱荷华州务卿保罗·佩特是共和党人，他说道。“当CISA教我们如何进行桌面演练时，我们很快就想学会不仅如何进行演练，还如何向他人传授。”
西弗吉尼亚州务卿克里斯·华纳是共和党人，他告诉CNN，他的“王牌”是其办公室聘请了一名前CISA官员担任首席信息官，同时强调他的州从未依赖联邦政府进行选举管理，尤其是在他与其他州建立的伙伴关系方面。
“我们不需要联邦政府拿起手机，就能联系迈克尔·亚当斯或丹尼·霍斯金斯或其他我们需要保持联系的州务卿，他说道。
尽管如此，即使他们成功地为自己重建了CISA的支持，这样的成功，这样做的财务成本仍然是选举官员持续的负担。
“这落在了内华达州纳税人的肩上，而内华达州纳税人已经在向联邦政府纳税来完成这项工作。联邦政府应该承担起这个责任，但他们没有，”阿吉拉尔说道。
CISA选举专家被解雇后，这些专家分散到了大型科技公司或新兴的小型非营利组织的选举网络安全支持职位——其中许多组织向选举官员免费提供服务。
但在2020年争议性捐款后，有24个州禁止为选举提供私人资金——这些捐款被蔑称为“扎克币”，来自马克·扎克伯格的基金会——至少一些州法律禁止各州从私人组织免费获得此类服务。
“这简直疯了，”佩特谈到选举办公室的网络安全成本增加时说道。“我们必须认真对待这种持续的资金流——无论是各州必须出资，还是联邦政府将继续致力于此事。”
Trump admin tries to rebuild election security infrastructure it gutted as midterms near
2026-07-31T10:00:26.873Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/31/politics/trump-admin-rebuild-election-security-months-after-gutting-it
After dismantling the federal system designed to protect US elections, the Trump administration now says it has a plan to rebuild it — less than 100 days before Election Day and just weeks before ballots begin going out in the mail.
A year after forcing out many of its most experienced election-security specialists, a key federal cyber agency is now reassigning remaining staff into new roles.
The agency says the new liaisons are expected to “build trusted relationships” with state and local elected officials, according to an internal summary of the administration’s plans obtained by CNN.
The memo, which US officials emailed Capitol Hill staff earlier this month, reveals more details than the Trump administration has publicly provided about how it intends to reconstitute its election-security operation amid demands from President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin for a sweeping overhaul.
The DHS agency that oversees this work — the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) — says it will use a security mechanism it employed during the World Cup to protect the midterm elections. It also promises a public plan in 30 days that will “lay out cyber and physical security resources” for states, according to the July 17 email.
But election officials and non-partisan experts warn it’s too deep into the election cycle for any major changes to their security protocols, and they are skeptical that the agency’s hollowed-out workforce can deliver even the baseline support to states before the midterms.
In a closed-door briefing this month, a CISA official recently assigned to election security told congressional staff that the agency has been so depleted of staff that it wouldn’t be able to provide its normal election-security assistance ahead of the midterms, according to a US official.
Met with months of mostly radio silence from CISA, states have moved on, cobbling together new security measures to fill gaps created when the Trump administration gutted the election-related functions of the agency.
State and local officials have stretched their tight budgets to contract with private cybersecurity vendors or hire additional IT staff to do that work in-house. They’re setting up the sort of table-top exercises that CISA previously hosted to game-out how they would respond to security emergencies. And they’ve had to retool the information-sharing processes among states that served as an early warning system for any attempts to disrupt election systems, with state and local governments paying for a platform that the federal government once offered for free.
“This was all supported by federal agencies,” Vermont Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas told CNN. “Now we’ve got to figure out how we can share that — with some duct tape and, you know, maybe a bungee cord or two.”
State and local election officials are nonetheless confident they’ve taken the steps needed to plug the holes and secure election infrastructure for the 2026 midterms. But they acknowledge that they haven’t been able to replicate the federal government’s ability to coordinate intelligence gathering and analysis across multiple federal agencies for a nationwide view of emerging threats.
The advantage of that cross-government approach was evident when the first Trump administration identified attempts by Iranian actors to influence the 2020 elections. Working with intelligence agencies, CISA played a critical role in presenting that information to election officials, using language they could act upon, according to various sources in the election community. Information that election officials shared with CISA and its counterparts at the FBI helped the federal government understand what the Iranians were up to.
CISA’s then-director Chris Krebs stood next to then-director of National Intelligence John Ratfcliffe to announce the influence campaign — an episode Mullin omitted when he and Trump claimed a government cover-up of the Iranian efforts.
In a statement to CNN, CISA acting Director Nick Andersen said the coming election security plan “will further offer to states the cyber resources they need, including information about available no-cost voluntary services such as the sharing of threat information, technical expertise, vulnerability scanning, and other risk mitigation support.”
Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar, a Democrat, told CNN it was “too late” in the election-preparation season for such a plan from the federal government — a point echoed by others who work in election security.
“We are well until the election cycle. It is not simply about Election Day. Election Day is not when the Russians started in 2016. It is not when the Iranians started in 2020,” said Geoff Hale, a former election security official at CISA who is now a visiting fellow at the Center for Democracy and Technology. “People should be realizing we have a gap of information of 14 to 18 months.”
For nearly a decade — after a decision in 2017 by the outgoing Obama administration to designate elections a subsection of the nation’s critical infrastructure — CISA forged relationships with election officials through 10 regional offices, which were eventually staffed with election advisers who could help direct resources to voting officials.
Those resources included table-top exercises, stress-testing election systems’ cyber defenses and intelligence advisories laying out potential threats. Physical security of elections became a focus after the 2020 election made harassment and threats to election officials a more prominent issue. At the request of local offices, CISA officials would conduct assessments of the physical security around polling locations or other election sites.
But CISA’s presence shrunk drastically after Trump returned to the White House — more fixated than ever that a deep state was rigging elections against him — and his administration made dramatic cuts to the agency. Those regional election specialists were forced out, as were other CISA employees who focused on elections, including Hale, and much of the election-related work of the CISA experts who remained was put on hold.
Despite the gutting of personnel and operations, CISA’s services to election officials haven’t ceased entirely, according to people who work with election officials who described the support as scattershot at best. Election officials in a handful of states have been able to secure occasional assistance— sometimes, by not mentioning in their request for a security assessment that it was for an election-specific function. CISA’s larger mission of helping state and local governments with security issues lives on.
Still, in large swaths of the country, election officials have not obtained any election-specific support from CISA this voting cycle.
Instead, election officials have grown to rely on a “ragtag team of advisors and coordinators that we’ve built among those of us who were doing this work previously,” said Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat.
For instance, under prior administrations, the federal government paid for an information-shared portal used by election officials across the country.
The portal, the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center, is still operating, but now under a paid subscription model, creating a patchwork of membership across 44 states. In some states, the state elections offices are paying for the local election administrators to have access to the platform, while in other states, local offices are buying their own memberships.
‘Happy it’s now and not a few years ago’
The silver lining for the election community is that they had nearly a decade of experience working with CISA’s security experts before Trump took a wrecking ball to the agency.
“My main take on the CISA pullback is I am happy it’s now and not a few years ago,” said a person who works with election officials and asked for anonymity to not strain their working relationship with the administration.
With that know-how, state officials stressed their ability to adapt to the change in landscape, with some GOP election administrators arguing the federal retreat is not the crisis it is sometimes made out to be.
“We took the resources and the knowledge that was being shared by the various federal partnerships and tried to make sure we were able to reproduce it going down the road,” said Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate, a Republican. “When CISA was teaching us how to do tabletop exercises, well, we quickly wanted to learn how not only to do them, but how to teach them to others.”
West Virginia Secretary Kris Warner, a Republican told CNN his “ace in the hole” was his office’s hiring of a former CISA official as its chief information officer, while stressing that his state was never reliant on the federal government for election administration, particularly with the partnerships he has built with other states.
“We don’t need the feds to be able to pick up a cell phone and call Michael Adams or Denny Hoskins or any of the other secretaries of state that we need to stay in contact with,” he said.
Still, even with their success in recreating CISA’s support for themselves, the financial cost of doing so remains an ongoing burden for election officials.
“This is on the back of the Nevada taxpayers, when it’s Nevada taxpayers who are already paying into the federal government to do this job. The federal government should take on this responsibility, and they’re not,” Aguilar said.
The ouster of CISA’s election specialists has created a diaspora of those experts landing in election cybersecurity support roles at large tech companies or smaller non-profits that have popped up — many of them offering their services cost-free to election officials.
But among the two-dozen states that have banned private funding for elections — after controversial donations to elections offices in 2020, pejoratively known as ZuckBucks, from Mark Zuckerberg’s foundation — at least some of those state laws block states from receiving such services gratis from private organizations.
“It’s just gone crazy,” Pate said, of the increase in cybersecurity costs for elections offices. “We’re going have to really get serious about that consistent funding stream — whether that’s going to be the states having to pony it up, or the federal government’s going to stay committed to it.”
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