Secretaries of State past and present question federal criticism of election integrity efforts: ‘The threats continue’

Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs has written to the state’s congressional delegation expressing concerns about “federal support and efforts to counter election disinformation” state officials across the country can expect going forward.

Hobbs’ letter, which he sent to members of Congress Wednesday, comes after the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency reportedly placed 17 election officials on leave last week pending review. According to Hobbs, the election security advisor for Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington was among those placed on leave.

“This abrupt move has left state and local election officials wondering: Who can we depend on to support election security now? Especially in light of the growing threats from cybercriminals and nation-state actors,” Hobbs said Wednesday.

Formed in 2018, CISA is a subagency of the Department of Homeland Security that has seen heightened scrutiny under the new federal administration. During her January confirmation hearing, new Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem said the agency has strayed “far off mission” and pledged to focus on cybersecurity .

“They’re using our resources in ways that were never intended. The misinformation and disinformation that they have stuck their toe into and meddled with should be refocused back onto what their job is,” Noem said.

“And that is to support critical infrastructure and to help our local and small businesses and critical infrastructure at the state level, to have the resources and be prepared for those cyberattacks that they will face.”

During her confirmation hearing, Noem said CISA needs to be “smaller and more nimble” to fulfill the agency’s intended mission.

A CISA spokesperson referred a request for comment to the Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Jen Easterly, who served as director of CISA from 2021 to 2025, stepped down from the agency on Jan. 20. As of Tuesday, President Donald Trump has not nominated a director for the agency. According to Politico, Trump has eyed Sean Plankey, who served as a cybersecurity policy advisor in the first Trump administration, for the role.

CISA operates an annual budget of roughly $3 billion.

The agency, Hobbs said, aids Washington’s 39 counties through security assessments, tools and resources that “many local jurisdictions simply cannot afford on their own.” According to Hobbs, 15 counties in Washington rely on CISA for real-time threat analysis and cybersecurity protections, including penetration tests to find security risks, at no cost.

“Without them, securing these networks would cost the state three times as much, something our budget cannot sustain,” Hobbs said.

According to information provided by the Secretary of State’s office, Washington saves more than $5 million a year through services provided by CISA.

In his letter to Washington’s congressional delegation, Hobbs wrote that the agency played an “essential role in protecting Washington’s elections,” which included coordinating the federal response to county election offices after workers in Spokane, Pierce and King counties found white powder in envelopes. The substance in Spokane ended up testing positive for fentanyl.

“These events underscore the critical nature of federal support in safeguarding our election infrastructure against both physical and cyber threats,” Hobbs wrote.

Hobbs said Wednesday that it was unclear whether the services the agency provides would continue through another agency going forward.

“It doesn’t help when all of this expertise, and these folks are not Republicans or Democrats, a lot of them are just working there because they want to do the right thing, they’re just told that they’d be placed on administrative leave,” Hobbs said.

Hobbs said a planned election security briefing hosted by CISA and the FBI for legislative leaders was recently canceled “because the agency could no longer support it.”

“Election security is not a partisan issue,” Hobbs said. “Both Democrat and Republican secretaries of state have raised concerns over these sudden federal changes.”

Kim Wyman, who served as Washington’s secretary of state prior to joining CISA as the senior election security adviser in 2021, said in an interview Wednesday that the decision to suspend federal election officials was “disappointing” and will negate six years of efforts the agency made to collaborate with local officials.

“They wiped out what we spent a lot of time building, and the threats continue,” Wyman said.

Election security advisors within CISA, Wyman said, spent years building relationships with officials throughout the country through tabletop exercises and other planning to prepare for potential threats. The cooperation allowed officials to practice their responses to hypothetical election scenarios, shoring up potential weaknesses in election systems.

“And now all of that work is gone, and those relationships don’t exist any longer,” Wyman said.

Wyman departed from CISA in 2023 and serves as the senior fellow for the elections project at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington, D.C.,-based think tank. During an interview, Wyman stressed that the views she expressed were her own, and did represent the views of the Bipartisan Policy Center.

A lack of cooperation between the federal government and local officials could extend to other agencies like the FBI and the intelligence community, Wyman said, hindering response to misinformation in the 2026 midterms and 2028 presidential election.

“I think that’s going to be a huge loss,” Wyman said.