Padilla and Morelle Demand DHS Restore $39.6 Million in Election Security Funds

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) and Rep. Joseph Morelle (D-NY) sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and acting CISA Director Nick Anderson on September 2, 2026, demanding the restoration of more than $39.6 million in election security funds that Congress approved in the fiscal year 2026 DHS Appropriations bill passed in April. NPR obtained an exclusive copy of the letter, which was first reported September 3. (NPR)

Padilla, the ranking member of the Senate Rules Committee, and Morelle, the ranking member of the House Committee on Administration, pointed to specific funding gaps at the Election Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EI-ISAC). EI-ISAC is a hub that shares threat intelligence with state and local election offices. After funding cuts in March 2025, the center shifted to a paid membership model, leaving smaller and under-resourced communities unable to afford its services. (NPR)

Before those cuts, EI-ISAC operated as a free, voluntary resource for state, local, tribal and territorial election office employees to receive intelligence on how foreign and domestic threat actors target election infrastructure. The loss of that no-cost access is central to the Democrats' argument that CISA's current posture leaves local election officials without the threat intelligence they need heading into the midterm cycle. (NPR)

The letter also cited the removal of hundreds of CISA personnel and Trump administration attempts to slash the agency's budget as a major concern. The Trump administration cut federal funding for election security programs and eliminated a range of federal jobs focused on the issue across DHS. (NPR)

DHS and CISA did not immediately respond to NPR's request for comment on the letter. (NPR)

The Padilla-Morelle letter is the latest in a sustained Democratic effort to pressure the administration on election security. In June 2026, House Committee on Homeland Security Democrats published correspondence asking DHS how it intends to use its FY 2026 election security funding to support state and local election officials ahead of the midterms, framing the inquiry as a response to what they called the administration's dismantling of election security programs. (House Homeland Security Democrats)

That effort built on an earlier push from civil rights organizations. In April 2025, a coalition letter urged House and Senate negotiators to include $825 million in HAVA Election Security funding in the FY 2026 government funding bill. HAVA, the Help America Vote Act, is the federal law that sets standards for voting systems and election administration. (civilrights.org)

House Homeland Security Committee Ranking Member Bennie G. Thompson separately stated that the Trump administration's firings at the Election Assistance Commission threaten the foundation of election security legislation. Thompson, along with Rep. Shri Thanedar, introduced the DHS Acquisition Documentation Integrity Act on July 14, 2026. Homeland Security Committee Democrats also advanced three bipartisan bills to strengthen national security in July 2026. (House Homeland Security Democrats)

The funding fight is layered onto a months-long dispute over DHS appropriations. The Department of Homeland Security went unfunded from February 13, 2026, after a funding impasse that House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Garbarino characterized as Democrats shutting down DHS to withhold funding from the department. Garbarino said at a March 25 hearing that Senate Democrats "repeatedly held up and voted against a bipartisan, bicameral deal to fund DHS for Fiscal Year 2026," calling the move "not only flawed but immensely dangerous." (House Homeland Security Committee)

The shutdown traced back to a broader confrontation. On March 23, 2026, Reuters reported that President Trump tied a DHS funding deal to approval of a voter bill, citing a NewsNation report. (Reuters) The Senate agreed on March 27, 2026, to end the shutdown of most of DHS, with Democrats supporting the measure because it did not include funding for ICE and Republicans also backing it. (Reuters) Rep. Brad Schneider said Democrats had pushed for 76 days to fund DHS agencies including TSA, the Secret Service, and the Coast Guard. (Schneider)

The funding dispute reemerged again in September. Democrats sent a counteroffer to the White House and Republicans on September 2, 2026, outlining their demands to fund DHS, the same day Padilla and Morelle dispatched their letter. (ABC News) The earlier deal struck between Senate Democrats and the White House to temporarily fund DHS and avert a partial shutdown set the stage for the continuing appropriations fight. (PBS NewsHour)

Padilla and Morelle argued the need for election security funding is urgent given ongoing U.S. conflicts and the rapid increase in cyberattacks. The threat landscape they cited has precedent: during the 2016 presidential election, the U.S. intelligence community concluded Russia interfered, including by leaking damaging information about Hillary Clinton to sway voters toward Donald Trump. Iran has also ramped up efforts to undermine confidence in the American electoral system and advocate for its preferred candidates and policies. Hackers have not managed to compromise voting machines at scale, but hack-and-leak operations and disinformation campaigns on social media have drawn widespread attention and shaped media coverage. (NPR)

In July 2026, President Trump delivered a primetime speech about election vulnerabilities in which he offered no new evidence that the election won by President Joe Biden was compromised. The speech added a political dimension to the funding debate: at the same time the administration has moved to reduce election security resources at CISA and DHS, the president has publicly raised questions about election integrity without presenting corroborating evidence. (NPR)

The broader context here is a structural tension between the administration's stated concerns about election integrity and its simultaneous reduction of the federal infrastructure designed to protect elections. The Padilla-Morelle letter puts that tension on the record in writing, directed at the two officials responsible for executing whatever election security capacity DHS and CISA maintain. Whether the $39.6 million legislated in the FY 2026 appropriations bill is actually disbursed, and whether EI-ISAC returns to its free-service model, are open questions as the midterms approach.