WASHINGTON, Sept. 6 — The Trump administration is withholding $39.6 million in election security funds that Congress mandated in the fiscal year 2026 DHS Appropriations bill, passed in April, leaving the money unspent at the Department of Homeland Security eight weeks before Americans cast their midterm ballots. The standoff comes as foreign adversaries escalate cyberattacks on American infrastructure and military commanders have testified that those adversaries specifically plan to target the 2026 elections.
Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) and Rep. Joseph Morelle (D-NY) — the top Democrats on the Senate and House committees with jurisdiction over federal elections — sent a letter Wednesday to DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin and Nick Anderson, the acting director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), demanding the agency distribute the funds as directed. The lawmakers wrote that they share “grave concern that time is running out” to assist state and local election officials in protecting elections from cyber and disinformation threats.
A legal obligation, not a political choice
The $39.6 million is not discretionary. Under the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, a president who withholds congressionally appropriated funds must formally notify Congress and can be compelled by the Government Accountability Office to spend them. The administration has not publicly submitted a rescission request for these election security funds.
Padilla and Morelle argued that distributing the money is a legal obligation, not a political choice. Strategically, the funding fight is only the latest layer of a broader withdrawal from election security infrastructure that began before this appropriation cycle.
The centerpiece of what has been eliminated since early 2025 was the Election Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EI-ISAC) — the only federally funded security operations center dedicated exclusively to the nation’s election offices. Before its federal funding was terminated in March 2025, the EI-ISAC ran a 24-hour security center monitoring cyberattacks on election infrastructure, deployed a purpose-built intrusion detection system called Albert designed for state and local government networks, and provided active defense against malicious domains targeting voter registration databases and election-results websites.
That service was free to any of the more than 8,800 election offices nationwide.
Rural counties left exposed
When CISA terminated the ten-million-dollar EI-ISAC cooperative agreement with the Center for Internet Security, the center shifted to a paid membership model. For well-resourced offices in large cities and states, the transition was manageable; for rural counties and small municipalities — jurisdictions with the least IT capacity — the fees were prohibitive.
“The federal government has pulled the rug out from under the state and local election officials who came to rely on the excellent services provided by the EI-ISAC at no cost because of the federal support,” Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said at the time. The damage extended beyond the EI-ISAC to the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center, a parallel program that provided free cybersecurity monitoring to state and local governments.
What this signals for the broader stakes is a widening gap between the threat level and the defensive posture. With the midterms approaching and the withheld funds still parked at DHS, the question is whether the administration will release the money under congressional pressure — or force the issue through the Government Accountability Office. The lawmakers’ letter sets up that confrontation, but the clock is running.
