Election officials shouldn’t have to face growing danger with shrinking support. We can’t let threat actors set the terms for voter participation. Election security must remain a national security priority.

These NJ threats remind us: protecting democracy means protecting the people and places where democracy happens. That requires continued investment in cyber and physical security — every election.

And unlike in past cycles, CISA did not issue public guidance this year about likely threats to voting operations. That leaves state and local officials with less warning and fewer resources — even as threats increase.

But today, that capacity has been significantly degraded. CISA has cut red teams, incident responders, and regional election security advisors. The EI-ISAC — which once provided real-time threat sharing — has been completely defunded by CISA.

That support came from dedicated election security programs at the federal level. CISA and the EI-ISAC specifically alerted officials to coordinated bomb threat plans before Election Day in 2024.
cdt.org/insights/wit...

We’ve already seen the stakes: in 2024, over 100 bomb threats tied to Russian-linked actors targeted election operations nationwide. Because of strong preparation and federal support, voting continued with minimal disruption.

I won't speculate about attribution, but threat actors see chaos — even temporary polling place closures — as a win. It shakes voter confidence and puts election officials in danger. Protecting polling places is now a year-round, every-election urgency.

In this testimony on a CT deepfakes law, @beccabranum.bsky.social reminds us that some of the efforts to limit AI election risks introduce new threats to democracy, like limiting political speech and engagement cdt.org/insights/cdt...

The AI Elections Accord ended earlier this year. @alexreevegivens.bsky.social outlined in @justsecurity.org how companies should build a long-term approach to AI & elections www.justsecurity.org/107809/tech-...

Blog from @tharper.bsky.social discussing cuts to CISA and its serious implications for election security: cdt.org/insights/wit...

+ a follow up from earlier this month: cdt.org/insights/cis...

Read our @cdt.org research about the use of AI in 2024's elections globally. The third case study uses interviews with 15 experts researching AI & elections to evaluate the impact of AI on elections so far, and how that should inform future work cdt.org/insights/ada...