US military cyber teams drafted to guard November midterm elections
The US National Security Agency and other military intelligence and cyber forces will help guard election systems during the November midterm elections, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Monday. In a memo dated September 22 and announced publicly on Monday, Hegseth directed defence intelligence officials to mobilise every resource "to defend our election infrastructure from foreign malign influence and ensure that every lawful voter can cast their ballot free from foreign intimidation, coercion, or fear".
The announcement comes just weeks before Election Day on November 3, with early voting already under way. It also follows President Donald Trump’s decision to gut the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the civilian Department of Homeland Security division set up to protect election infrastructure.
Military cyber experts have routinely helped monitor systems and deter potential hackers since election equipment was designated "critical infrastructure" in 2017. Last week, the cybersecurity agency released an election infrastructure security plan setting out possible threats to election systems and the services it would offer election officials to help protect the vote.
David Becker, a former US Justice Department attorney who leads the non-profit Centre for Election Innovation & Research, said the timing raised doubts. The short timeline "suggests this is just theatre," he said. "If the administration was serious about assisting state and local election officials, they shouldn't have dismantled all of the federal government's election cybersecurity capacity and fired all their experts in early 2025," he said.
Even though assistance from the NSA and US Cyber Command is routine, many election experts, civil rights groups and Democratic election officials remain alert to signs of meddling in voting or ballot counting by the Trump administration. The president has continued to make false claims that elections are rife with fraud while trying to interfere with longstanding election procedures. The US Supreme Court blocked an attempt by Trump to restrict mail voting, but allowed the use of a federal database to check the citizenship of voters. Together, the latest moves have brought renewed focus to election security and the federal role in protecting the vote ahead of November 3.
