Trump has said voting is vulnerable even as his administration has undermined the agency supposed to protect it

Published October 26, 2026 6:00AM (EDT)

A Miami-Dade election official with the Miami-Dade County Elections Department conducts a comprehensive examination of the voting equipment that will be used in the November 8th general election on October 19, 2022 in Miami, Florida. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

This article originally appeared on ProPublica .

A few months into President Donald Trump’s second term, political appointees at the Department of Homeland Security made an unusual request of its agency focused on cybersecurity: Secretly acquire a voting machine and hack it.

The appointees wanted the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to procure the machine, examine it and report back the findings so they could be given to the White House, according to two former administration officials with knowledge of the request.

The proposition was shocking to CISA’s career staffers, according…