Donald Trump's administration reportedly asked federal cybersecurity officials to secretly obtain a voting machine, attempt to hack it and send their findings to the White House, raising concerns among career staff about how any discovered weaknesses might be used.
According to an investigation by ProPublica, two former administration officials said political appointees at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) wanted the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to examine the equipment without alerting its manufacturer if vulnerabilities were discovered.
The request reportedly left employees worried that their work could be used for political purposes rather than to protect elections.
One former official told ProPublica they feared the findings could be retained and later used to challenge results the administration disliked. However, the investigation reported that the proposed operation was never carried out, and it did not establish that officials had used or planned to use any vulnerabilities to overturn election results.
The episode comes as the United States prepares for its November 2026 midterm elections, with state election authorities raising concerns about the federal government's reduced support for election security.
CISA Voting Machine Request Raises Election Security Concerns
CISA employees reportedly pushed back against the proposal, repeatedly telling political appointees that they could not fulfil the request.
According to the two former officials cited by ProPublica, the agency had recently lost personnel with the specialist knowledge needed to carry out the operation, following staffing cuts associated with Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency initiative. Those personnel losses were reported as one reason the operation was considered unfeasible.
The request also reportedly departed from CISA's established approach to cybersecurity testing. The agency has traditionally worked with state authorities and voting technology manufacturers to identify weaknesses and help address them.
One former official told the publication: 'My thought was they could keep it in their back pocket to invalidate any [election] results they don't like.'
That statement describes the individual's concern, rather than establishing what senior officials intended to do with any potential findings. ProPublica reported that the appointees eventually stopped pressing the agency after employees said the operation was not possible.
The episode also highlights a wider challenge for election security: identifying a technical weakness is only one part of protecting voting systems. Findings must be handled carefully, shared with the appropriate parties and addressed before they can be exploited.
Although keeping manufacturers unaware of a discovered flaw could make it harder to ensure that a vulnerability is corrected, the investigation did not report that the proposed operation resulted in an exploitable weakness being discovered.
CISA's role is particularly important because election administration in the United States is largely handled by state and local authorities. The federal agency provides technical advice, cybersecurity resources and information about potential threats, helping local officials defend systems that they may not have the resources to assess independently.
Trump Administration Cuts Leave State Election Officials Seeking Support
The reported request comes against the backdrop of substantial changes at CISA since Trump returned to office in January 2025. ProPublica reported that more than 1,000 employees had been laid off or pushed out, reducing the agency's workforce by roughly one-third.
Its investigation also found that cuts to personnel and resources had affected the agency's ability to support state election officials.
Ryan Macias, an election technology and cybersecurity expert who has consulted for CISA, described the agency's absence from election preparation in stark terms. Discussing the period from 2025 through mid-September 2026, he told ProPublica: 'There is a difference between deprioritizing and being nonexistent.'
He added that the agency's experts 'were nonexistent. Literally nonexistent.'
ProPublica reported that some state authorities had stopped sharing sensitive information with CISA because they no longer trusted the federal government to protect it. That information-sharing relationship had taken years to establish, allowing officials to alert one another to suspicious activity and coordinate responses to potential threats.
The administration disputes the criticism of its election security approach. White House spokesperson Lauren Bis told ProPublica: 'President Trump has done more than any other President to ensure we have free and fair elections.' DHS and CISA did not respond to the publication's requests for comment about the agency's handling of elections.
CISA subsequently published a 2026 Election Infrastructure Security Plan on 24 September. The plan sets out voluntary services for election officials, including threat information sharing, technical expertise, vulnerability scanning and risk-reduction support.
Its publication indicates that the agency intends to provide assistance, although the existence of a plan does not by itself establish how much support will be delivered in practice or resolve concerns about staffing, implementation or confidence among state partners.
For election officials, the immediate challenge is ensuring that voting systems remain secure while maintaining confidence in the process. The reported request has added to existing concerns about the relationship between federal agencies and the officials responsible for running elections, particularly over how cybersecurity findings would be handled.
