Sen. Alex Padilla of California and Rep. Joseph Morelle of New York have sent a formal letter to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and acting Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) head Nick Anderson, demanding the immediate release of more than $39.6 million in congressionally appropriated funds for state and local election security. The two Democrats, who serve as ranking members overseeing election administration, set a firm September 9 deadline for the agency to disburse the money, warning that with midterm elections roughly two months away, time is running out to help election officials defend against cyber and disinformation threats.
What the Funding Was Supposed to Cover
According to Padilla and Morelle, the $39.6 million was explicitly legislated in the fiscal year 2026 Department of Homeland Security Appropriations bill, which passed Congress in April. The money was intended to support a range of specific election security initiatives, including cybersecurity training, threat-sharing infrastructure, and technical assistance for local election offices heading into the November midterms. Chief among the programs affected is the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center, or EI-ISAC, which provides no-cost cybersecurity monitoring, threat alerts, and training to election jurisdictions across the country.
Impact on Under-Resourced Election Offices
The lawmakers specifically flagged that without the appropriated funds, EI-ISAC cannot extend free security training and services to under-resourced communities that otherwise cannot afford to opt into the organization’s paid membership tier. Many small counties and municipalities rely on EI-ISAC as their primary source of cybersecurity expertise, since they lack in-house IT security staff. Election officials in these jurisdictions have said they depend on federal partners for basic services such as vulnerability scanning and phishing-resistant authentication tools.
CISA Cuts Compound the Concern
Padilla and Morelle’s letter also points to broader reductions at CISA under the Trump administration, citing what they describe as the removal of hundreds of CISA personnel and administration attempts to slash the agency’s overall budget. The lawmakers argue this combination of workforce reductions and withheld appropriations has left election officials with fewer points of contact and less clarity about what services remain available to them. Reporting from NPR affiliates has also noted that officials in some states say they have submitted requests to CISA for security assistance without receiving timely responses, leaving them uncertain who to reach out to at the agency for support.
Administration’s Position
The Department of Homeland Security has not issued a detailed public rebuttal to the specific $39.6 million funding delay cited in the Padilla-Morelle letter, though the administration has broadly defended its restructuring of CISA as an effort to refocus the agency’s mission and reduce what officials have characterized as bureaucratic overreach in areas like disinformation monitoring. Critics of CISA’s prior election security role, including some Republican lawmakers, have argued in the past that the agency overstepped its mandate by engaging with social media companies on content moderation related to elections, a dispute that has fueled skepticism in some GOP circles about restoring the agency’s funding and staffing to prior levels.
Local Election Officials Caught in the Middle
Even as federal support has become less certain, some jurisdictions are pressing ahead on their own. Los Angeles County, for instance, has reported fielding roughly a billion network events of interest during the 2024 election cycle and has invested in artificial intelligence tools within its own cybersecurity operations center to help distinguish genuine threats from routine network noise. Officials there and elsewhere say such investments are necessary precisely because federal support has become harder to count on, but smaller counties without similar budgets have far fewer options if federal programs lapse.
What’s Next
With the September 9 deadline set by Padilla and Morelle now arrived, attention turns to whether DHS releases the funds in time for election offices to put them to use before early voting begins in many states this fall. Election security researchers have warned that cybersecurity investments, such as staff training and system hardening, generally need weeks or months of lead time to be effective, making further delay increasingly costly. Should the funds remain unreleased, Democrats have signaled they may pursue additional oversight action, including potential hearings, while election officials in under-resourced jurisdictions will be left weighing how to fill the gap with state and local resources alone.
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