The Department of Homeland Security released a 13-page plan Thursday that state and local election officials can use to protect voting infrastructure from cyber and physical threats ahead of the 2026 midterms.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin announced the 2026 Election Infrastructure Security Plan in a statement, framing it as central to national security.
“Election security is national security,” Mullin said. “This plan, which will be implemented in full, is crucial to the security, freeness, and fairness of choosing the leaders of our country. Making America safe again isn’t just done at the border, in our streets, and on the coast — it’s also done in protecting the integrity of American elections.”
The document was produced by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), a division of DHS. It lays out the components of a typical election operation — voter registration systems, tabulation systems, voting hardware and processing facilities — and catalogs the threats officials could face this cycle, including attempted hacks of state voter databases and bomb threats against election offices.
To address vulnerabilities, the plan recommends officials rely on paper ballots “that can be easily reviewed to ensure transparency, auditability, and resilience against software failures or manipulation,” and calls for post-election manual audits to catch errors before results are certified.
Free Tools Offered to Election Offices
CISA’s plan lists several no-cost resources local officials can use to shore up defenses, including Risk & Vulnerability Assessments that evaluate an office’s internal and external systems, authentication weaknesses, network architecture and potential attack pathways, producing a detailed report on risks and fixes.
Also included is a vulnerability-scanning service that continuously monitors internet-connected election systems and sends weekly reports along with urgent alerts when serious issues are found.
The plan connects officials with CISA’s 10 regional Election Security Advisors, who coordinate cybersecurity support across their assigned states, and with state-run fusion centers, which share threat intelligence and help integrate federal, state, local and tribal partners in responding to both cyber and physical risks.
“In conclusion, the CISA 2026 Election Infrastructure Security Plan represents a comprehensive commitment to safeguarding the integrity of the United States electoral process,” the report states. “By leveraging collaborative partnerships, robust cyber defenses, and ongoing threat intelligence, the plan ensures that all stakeholders are prepared to address evolving risks.”
A Different Direction for CISA
The release marks a sharp turn for an agency that has drawn heavy criticism from conservatives in recent years. CISA was established in 2018 to protect critical infrastructure and defend against cyber threats, but a 2023 House GOP report found it had “metastasized” into a tool for the federal government’s domestic surveillance and censorship operations on social media.
A separate House report from the same year detailed how CISA worked with Stanford University to pressure major tech platforms into censoring prominent conservative voices ahead of the 2020 election, including The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway and Sean Davis.
The new plan positions CISA squarely in the role of securing election systems rather than policing online speech.
