The Trump administration on Thursday released a 13-page blueprint aimed at helping state and local election officials harden their voting systems against cyber and physical threats ahead of the 2026 midterms, according to The Federalist, which obtained the document.
The 2026 Election Infrastructure Security Plan was produced by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Department of Homeland Security component tasked with protecting critical U.S. infrastructure. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin framed the effort as inseparable from the administration’s broader national security messaging.
“Election security is national security,” Mullin said in a statement. “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.”
What’s Inside the Plan
The document opens with an overview of the infrastructure that underpins a typical American election — polling places and ballot-processing facilities, voting hardware, voter registration systems and tabulation equipment — before walking through the categories of threats officials could face in 2026.
Those threats include attempted cyber intrusions into state voter registration databases and bomb threats targeting election offices, according to the plan.
To reduce cyber vulnerabilities, the guidance urges officials to weigh the use of paper ballots “that can be easily reviewed to ensure transparency, auditability, and resilience against software failures or manipulation.” It also recommends conducting manual post-election audits of paper ballots to confirm that voting systems performed correctly and to catch errors before results are certified.
No-Cost Services for Local Offices
A central feature of the plan is a menu of what CISA describes as no-cost products and services available to election administrators.
Among them are Risk and Vulnerability Assessments, which the report says deliver “a comprehensive evaluation of an entity’s security posture, covering internal and external systems, authentication weaknesses, network architecture, and exploitable pathways.” Each assessment produces what the plan calls a detailed, actionable report laying out risks and mitigation steps.
The plan also lists vulnerability scanning, which continuously monitors internet-accessible network assets — specifically public, static IPv4 addresses — for weaknesses and risky configurations. Offices that sign up receive weekly reports on findings, plus ad-hoc alerts when urgent issues such as unsafe services or known exploited vulnerabilities surface.
Election officials would additionally get access to CISA’s 10 regional directors, who serve as Election Security Advisors for their clusters of states. According to the report, those advisors “play a critical role in ensuring [state, local, tribal, and territorial] partners receive timely, expert support aligned with national cybersecurity risk-reduction priorities.”
The final major resource highlighted is the network of fusion centers, state-owned and operated hubs that CISA says “serve as a key channel for sharing threat intelligence and risk-assessment data, strengthening the security and resilience of election operations.” The centers are intended to integrate officials across levels of government to address cyber and physical risks as they emerge, and to serve as a channel for threat reporting, analysis and information sharing.
In its closing section, the report describes itself as “a comprehensive commitment to safeguarding the integrity of the United States electoral process,” adding that by “leveraging collaborative partnerships, robust cyber defenses, and ongoing threat intelligence,” it ensures stakeholders are prepared for evolving risks.
A Pivot for an Agency Under Conservative Scrutiny
The plan marks a notable shift in posture for CISA, which has spent years in the crosshairs of Republican lawmakers. Created in 2018 to protect critical infrastructure and counter cybersecurity threats, the agency was later accused by House Republicans of drifting far beyond that mandate.
A 2023 House GOP report concluded that CISA had “metastasized” into a tool of federal “domestic surveillance and censorship operations on social media,” according to The Federalist. A separate House report released later that year alleged that the agency worked with Stanford University to pressure major technology companies into suppressing prominent conservative voices ahead of the 2020 election — a list that included The Federalist’s own Mollie Hemingway and Sean Davis.
Those findings form the backdrop against which the Trump administration is now positioning CISA as a service provider to local election offices rather than a monitor of online speech. Whether the agency’s critics in Congress view the new blueprint as a genuine course correction or a rebranding exercise remains an open question.
The plan’s emphasis on paper ballots and manual audits aligns with a long-running Republican priority on election administration, while its reliance on federally offered scanning and assessment services could revive debates about how much control Washington should have over systems run by states and counties.
With the midterms approaching, the 13-page document is now in the hands of the local officials who will actually run the 2026 contest — many of whom have spent the past several years navigating a politically charged environment in which every federal offer of assistance tends to be scrutinized from both directions.
Source: thefederalist.com — https://thefederalist.com/2026/09/24/exclusive-trump-admin-releases-blueprint-to-protect-election-infrastructure-ahead-of-midterms/