News Release

Denver, February 21, 2025 - Today, the Executive Board of the bipartisan National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) issued a letter to the United States Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem (PDF) seeking timely communication regarding her Department’s internal review of their work, and highlighting the importance of maintaining continuity for federal election protection resources.

Secretary of State Jena Griswold has issued the following statement:

Free and fair elections are the bedrock of our democracy. Since taking office, the Trump administration has worked to sideline and dismantle teams of specialists who work to secure elections at the federal level. Secretaries of State rely on strong federal partnerships to bolster election security. I join NASS in urging the Department of Homeland Security to maintain federal support for elections.

Since the beginning of the second Trump administration, numerous steps have been taken that may undermine security in elections and voter confidence. Those actions include:

• CISA’s Mis-, Dis-, and Malinformation taskforce has been disbanded
• CISA’s regional Election Security Analysts have been put on leave
• The FBI’s Foreign Influence task force has been disbanded
• Funding for programs within the Election Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EI-ISAC) has been frozen
• Individuals with DOGE have been given access to CISA files and infrastructure
• The Interim D.C. U.S. Attorney dismissed federal prosecutors who worked on January 6 insurrection cases
• The Department of Justice has asked the FBI to turn over the names of every FBI agent who investigated the January 6 insurrection attempt
• Nearly 1,600 January 6 rioters have been pardoned or granted clemency
• President Trump discussed withholding federal disaster relief funding from California unless the state implemented strict voter ID requirements that would disenfranchise eligible voters

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been a valuable partner in alerting election officials to potential threats to elections and bolstering election security nationwide, particularly through the work of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Since 2017, elections have been designated as “critical infrastructure.” That designation allowed states to partner with CISA to utilize physical and cybersecurity services to bolster elections.

Among other services, CISA has supported elections in Colorado with:

• Cybersecurity and physical security assessments
• Supporting the Election Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EI-ISAC), which improves communications between election offices across the nation
• On-the-ground incident monitoring and response
• Hosting classified and unclassified intelligence briefings to help election officials better understand foreign threats to our election systems.