cross-posted from: https://quokk.au/c/usa/p/1257448/trump-appointees-asked-a-federal-cybersecurity-agency-to-secretly-acquire-a-voting-machine-a

• An Unusual Request: Political appointees at the Department of Homeland Security wanted the agency that protects election systems to get and hack a voting machine, which shocked staffers.
• Undermining Election Security: President Donald Trump has said voting is vulnerable even as his administration has undermined the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which is supposed to protect it.
• On Their Own: Election officials across the country say the Trump administration’s attacks on CISA have left them to solve security issues with the midterms approaching.

Though CISA re-emerged in September with a last-minute security plan for the election, some state officials told ProPublica they fear that what is left of the agency has been compromised by a conspiracy-obsessed presidential administration. In recent months, in reviving debunked theories about the 2020 election, the Trump administration has declassified troves of records, including sensitive material that state officials provided to CISA. Some state authorities said they no longer trusted the administration enough to share information with CISA, a key to the agency’s success in past elections.

“They’ve violated the entire premise of that information-sharing relationship,” said one former high-ranking federal cybersecurity official who now advises state governments on national security. “There’s no fucking way they’re ever going to give any information to CISA. And it’s unclear if they ever will in the future.”

DOGE laid off people critical to the agency’s election work, including those who’d worked closely with states. The Trump administration cut funding for the technology that monitored web and election servers, blinding the federal government to breaches it had detected.