Election Infrastructure ISAC details DDoS, phishing attacks as voting gets underway

One polling place reported to the EI-ISAC on Nov. 2 “a DDoS against their ballot drop box locations webpage that occurred Oct. 28,” according to the declassified situational awareness report.

The EI-ISAC also shared that “an election office reported phishing emails impersonating state agencies,” on Nov. 2, adding that the emails “did not appear to be customized for elections recipients.” “As of 9:30 a.m. ET, there are no reported foreign adversary information operation incidents and analysts are not tracking any ongoing threat activity,” the EI-ISAC said in the report.

The report also disclosed information on “non-threat activity with the potential to impact election operations,” including a countywide “voting machine issue, which may have been caused by the thickness of paper ballots, preventing some voting machines from accepting ballots.” The report is anonymized but most likely refers to the voting machine disruption in Westchester County. “Election officials are offering voters paper ballots and collecting ballots in orange emergency ballot bags while technicians work to resolve the issue,” according to the EI-ISAC. Westchester County’s Board of Elections put out a statement this morning on the paper ballot issue, while emphasizing to voters: “The Westchester Board of Elections wants to reassure every voter that your vote matters, your ballot will be secure and your vote will be counted.” A large portion of Westchester County falls under New York’s 17th congressional district, which is a closely watched race between incumbent Rep.

Mike Lawler (R-NY) and challenger Cait Conley. Conley is a former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency official and led the agency’s election security work in the 2024 cycle. If elected, Conley would be the first CISA official to hold a seat in Congress.

Andrew Walchuk, senior policy director and counsel of voting and fair representation at Common Cause, told reporters in a morning call that “there has been no indication thus far” the Westchester County voting machine issue is cyber-related. Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York, provided an update in a 1 pm call, calling the voting machine disruption “a programming issue.” CISA’s work on elections has faced major cuts in the second Trump administration and raised questions over the level of trust between CISA and state partners to provide election security services. “Given that there was a lot of disinvestment under this administration of CISA at DHS, we have seen a really strong response from civil society and a number of groups that have stood up to be resources and to be of assistance to election officials to ensure that cybersecurity threats are covered,” Walchuk said.

Walchuk said, “We know through our conversations with election officials and that network of folks - - many of whom were on the cybersecurity beat for the federal government before the attacks on agencies from this administration - - that [they] are already in communication supporting these local election officials.” CISA has stood up “Incident Coordination Group before and on Election Day to support election officials and maintain a unified operational picture,” an agency spokesperson said in a Nov. 2 statement.