Trump Officials Pressured CISA to Secretly Hack Voting Machines

Orders to breach hardware and conceal vulnerabilities

Political appointees inside the Department of Homeland Security directed the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to covertly procure a commercial voting machine, reverse-engineer its components, and bypass traditional disclosure channels. The directive, first revealed by ProPublica through accounts from two former federal officials, strictly forbade staff from warning the hardware manufacturer about any vulnerabilities uncovered during the tests.

That order strikes directly at the agency's founding mandate. Under federal coordinated vulnerability disclosure protocols, government security teams that identify digital flaws in critical systems must notify vendors so engineering teams can push fixes before adversaries exploit them. The risks of unpatched administrative pathways are well documented across critical infrastructure, from municipal utilities to cases where secret daily passwords expose refrigeration systems. Bypassing that framework to build an internal cache of undisclosed exploits breaks years of operational precedent.

One former official told ProPublica that staff feared political operatives intended to hold discovered flaws in reserve to challenge unfavorable ballot outcomes. The demand sought to weaponize federal research capabilities rather than harden national balloting hardware.

Staff cuts derailed the covert voting machine directive

The requested intrusion never materialized, but not because political leadership reconsidered the directive. Career technical specialists informed political appointees that the agency simply lacked the manpower to carry out the operation.

CISA has lost roughly one-third of its workforce, shedding 1,000 positions through sweeping federal workforce reductions driven by the Department of Government Efficiency. An additional 900 positions face elimination under proposed 2027 budget cutbacks. The departures decimated specialized research divisions and prompted the exit of most veteran technical directors.

The resource drain has ruptured the information-sharing bridge between Washington and local jurisdictions. Even as public bodies grapple with external disruptions, such as when a cyberattack halts federal operations, state election directors who relied on federal threat feeds and forensic teams ahead of midterms now find regional desks dark. Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes warned that state teams have been essentially cut off and left to defend election systems independently.

What it means for state election security

For state and county election officials in the US, the breakdown in federal trust leaves local precincts to shoulder penetration testing and audit verification alone. With CISA's advisory channels impaired, municipal election boards must contract private firms to audit tabulators and review digital poll books without coordinated threat intelligence from Washington.