The federal government is putting military intelligence and cybersecurity forces on election duty just weeks before Americans head to the polls — a move that is drawing fresh scrutiny after the Trump administration gutted the civilian election-security infrastructure built up over the past decade.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has directed the Defense Department’s intelligence agencies to mobilize their available resources to monitor and defend election infrastructure. He also directed Cyber Command to use its existing authorities and capabilities against potential foreign cyberattacks ahead of the November 3 midterms.
The directive was signed on September 22 and publicly announced Monday.
On paper, the mission sounds straightforward: Protect the election.
But the timing is raising eyebrows.
The announcement comes only weeks before Election Day, with early voting already underway in parts of the country.
And it comes after the Trump administration dismantled the federal government’s civilian election-security capacity, including cuts and restructuring at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
That has left election-security experts asking a fairly obvious question:
Why dismantle part of the civilian infrastructure responsible for protecting elections and then turn to military intelligence agencies just weeks before voters cast their ballots?
The White House says the goal is to identify foreign threats, share intelligence and help defend election systems from cyberattacks and foreign interference.
The directive does not itself authorize the military to run elections or count ballots.
Election administration remains primarily the responsibility of state and local officials.
But the expanded military role is arriving at a particularly sensitive moment.
The timing gets even more striking because CISA released its own 2026 Election Infrastructure Security Plan just days earlier.
The plan, released September 24, outlines cyber and physical threats facing election infrastructure and describes free services available to state and local election officials.
It covers everything from voter-registration databases and voting systems to vote-tabulation locations.
Observers aren’t buying the timing.
David Becker, a former Justice Department attorney who now leads the Center for Election Innovation & Research, called the timing “theater,” arguing that the administration weakened federal election cybersecurity capabilities earlier in Trump’s term.
His criticism is blunt: if the federal government intended to provide robust election-security assistance, he argues, it should not have dismantled so much of the existing civilian capacity and removed election-security experts.
That criticism reflects a broader concern among some election officials and security experts.
They aren’t necessarily objecting to the NSA or Cyber Command helping protect election systems.
They’re questioning what happens when that military role expands while civilian election-security infrastructure contracts.
The concern is also tied to Trump’s repeated claims about election fraud and his administration’s efforts to change election procedures.
The administration has pursued several election-related changes that have faced legal challenges.
On Monday, for example, a federal judge blocked a Trump administration effort to condition billions of dollars in counterterrorism grants on states adopting election-related requirements such as changes to voting systems, ballot procedures and voter-roll verification.
The administration has argued that those measures are necessary to protect elections from fraud and foreign interference.
Critics have argued that the federal government is attempting to exert influence over election administration, an area traditionally controlled largely by states and local jurisdictions.
