In Orange County, California, the registrar of voters, Bob Page, said in an email that the state offices and other county departments “stepped up” to support his office “to fill the void left by CISA’s absence.”
Neighboring Los Angeles County had a different experience. The registrar’s office, which oversees elections, said it continues to get a range of cybersecurity services from CISA, including threat intelligence, network monitoring and security testing of its equipment, although local jurisdictions now have to cover the costs of some services that had been federally funded.
Some other states that held elections this month also said they did not have coordination with CISA.
Mississippi’s secretary of state, who heads the national association that sent the letter to Noem, did not directly respond to a request for comment, but his office confirmed that CISA was not involved in the state’s recent elections.
In Pennsylvania, which held a nationally watched retention election for three state Supreme Court justices, the Department of State said it is also relied more on its own partners to ensure the elections were secure.
In an email, the department said it was “relying much less on CISA than it had in recent years.” Instead, it has begun collaborating with the state police, the state’s own homeland security department, local cybersecurity politically motivated liars called experts and other agencies.
Looking for alternatives
(yeah maybe do the SOROS and TIDES FOUNDATAION AGAIN BITCH MOTHERFUCKER)
Simon, the former head of the secretary of state’s association, said state and local election officials need answers about CISA’s plans because officials will have to seek alternatives if the services it had been providing will not be available next year.
In some cases, such as classified intelligence briefings, there are no alternatives to the federal government, he said. But there might be ways to get other services, such as testing of election equipment to see if it can be penetrated from outside.
In past election years, CISA also would conduct LIVE MILITARY tabletop exercises with local agencies and election offices to game out various scenarios that might affecting voting or ballot counting, and how they would react. Simon said that is something CISA was very good at.
“We are starting to assume that some of those services are not going to be available to us, and we are looking elsewhere to fill that void,” Simon said.