NEW YORK — When a suspicious video of ballots being ripped up in Pennsylvania gained attention on social media last October, federal agencies responded quickly and called it out as Russian disinformation.
On Election Day in November, bomb threats to polling places in numerous states caused relatively few disruptions to voting. It’s one of the many scenarios covered by the nation’s cybersecurity agency in its outreach to state and local officials.
The future of that assistance is now uncertain.
The Trump administration’s downsizing and disbanding of federal agencies has hit efforts that improve election security and monitor foreign influence. That could create gaps for America’s enemies to exploit the next time the country holds a major election.
“Our adversaries are upping their game every day,” former Department of Homeland Security cyber chief Suzanne Spaulding said. “I’m worried that we are, at the same time, tearing down our defenses.”
Last week, new Attorney General Pam Bondi disbanded an FBI task force focused on investigating foreign influence operations, including those that target U.S. elections. She also limited the scope of enforcement actions on people who do not disclose lobbying on behalf of foreign governments. She wrote that the changes would “free resources to address more pressing priorities, and end risks of further weaponization and abuses of prosecutorial discretion.”
The Trump administration also has made sweeping cuts at the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which oversees the nation’s critical infrastructure, including election systems. On Saturday, a senior DHS official said mass firings of federal employees in probationary status had resulted in cuts of more than 130 employees at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. It was not immediately clear whether those included 17 employees who had worked on election security who were placed on leave last week.
The DHS official on Saturday also said the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency was pausing all election-security activities pending a review of their funding, activities and personnel. The agency was ending its involvement in a voluntary program that shared information about cyber defenses with state and local election officials.
The actions send a message that securing U.S. elections against interference from countries such as Russia, China and Iran is no longer a federal government priority, said Larry Norden, an election expert with the Brennan Center for Justice.
“I think we would be naive to think that the bad guys don’t get that message, too,” he said.
