Howdy, folks.

Things got spicy this week on a tense election security call and in Wisconsin, where Votebeat was on the scene as an Election Night fiasco unfolded. Here’s a look at what’s in this edition:

‘I don’t trust you.’ Things get testy on election security call
Votebeat Brunch: Votebeat’s Alexander Shur takes us behind-the-scenes for Wisconsin’s Election Night fiasco
Michigan charges five noncitizens for allegedly voting in 2024 election

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Tensions between state election officials and the Trump administration are rising as we head into the heart of the midterm election season.

Frustrations boiled over on Monday during a rare election security call hosted by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency for state officials. During the call, Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes unloaded on the agency.

CISA used to be a go-to shop for many states looking for help ensuring that their elections weren’t hacked, targeted, or undermined by cyberattacks or foreign interference. CISA provided states with classified security briefings on threats, helped ensure that state voting equipment wasn’t vulnerable to cyberattacks, and worked with election leaders to game out potential risks.

All that changed when Donald Trump returned to the White House last year. The second Trump administration scaled back its support for states, cut back CISA staff, and launched an investigation of its former leader, whom Trump accused of disloyalty because he pushed back on the president’s false claims that the 2020 election was rigged. CISA has not had a permanent director since the start of Trump’s second term.

Changes at CISA have paired with the president’s broad focus on controlling how elections are run. The federal government is threatening to arrest election officials if they allow noncitizens to vote. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has vowed to withhold federal funds from states that don’t implement Trump administration election overhaul proposals. A coalition of Democratic states and officials has sued the Department of Homeland Security in a suit that accuses the Trump administration of withholding Federal Emergency Management Agency funding in an attempt to coerce states into enacting disputed election changes.

With all that as backdrop, CISA organized this week’s call – and things didn’t go too well.

After more than a year of near silence, elections officials wondered if CISA would step up to offer classified intelligence briefings on emerging cyber threats from hostile countries, specialized testing of election equipment, or training on how to prepare for potential problems on Election Day.

Instead, CISA leaders provided what one participant characterized as a generic “CYA” (cover your a**) briefing that offered state officials few assurances that the federal government would help thwart threats this November.

Participants said acting CISA Director Nick Andersen and Jim Harrell, the assistant director for integrated operations, offered no concrete support for the 2026 election, which is less than 90 days away. Instead, the participants said, CISA leadership seemed more focused on the 2028 presidential election.

When they were done, according to participants, Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, lashed out at the CISA officials. Fontes blasted the Trump administration for threatening state election officials and made it clear he had no confidence in their leadership, they said.

“Fontes got testy with them,” said one participant on the call who asked not to be identified. “‘I don't trust you,’ [Fontes told the CISA officials.] ‘Your boss came out there and said: We are going to criminalize the work you do. Why should we trust you?’”

When asked about the call, Fontes confirmed that he’d made those comments and expanded on his frustrations

“They don’t work with us, they work against us,” Fontes told Votebeat. “Why should I trust them?”

Fontes said it was difficult for state and local elections officials to have confidence they would get support from the federal government when the administration treats them like an adversary rather than a partner. He and others on the call said CISA leaders offered few assurances they would provide much support in the coming weeks.

“They just wholly and completely abandoned their duties and threatened prosecution,” Fontes said. “If they want to apologize for threatening us and ruining perfectly good systems, that’s a good start.”

CISA did not respond to requests for comment on the call.

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, also a Democrat, echoed Fontes’s frustrations.

“It’s unhelpful to have political leaders, including the secretary of Homeland Security, hinting at imprisoning election administrators who don’t do what they want,” Simon told Votebeat. “That’s just not helpful.”

Simon said Minnesota and other states have spent months working to fill the gaps left by the drop-off in CISA support.

“It’s pretty clear states are almost entirely on their own this election cycle and cannot rely on the federal government for election assistance,” said Simon.

Not everyone on the call came away with a sour taste in their mouth, though. Some participants described it as a tentative move that could help repair the strained relationship between state and federal leaders working on elections.

Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, also a Democrat, described the call as a “positive step” in rebuilding relations between CISA and state election officials.

“While this engagement is encouraging, CISA and our other federal partners must focus on continuing to rebuild trust with election officials,” Hobbs said. “Over the last two years, we have watched this administration systematically dismantle many of the election security resources in place at the federal level.”

With the November election fast approaching, he said, “election officials need sustained commitment to supporting local elections, not renewed attention only as major elections approach. Meaningful support will do more to rebuild relationships than words alone.”

Votebeat Brunch: On the front lines of Wisconsin’s election night fiasco with Votebeat reporter Alexander Shur

Votebeat reporter Alexander Shur unexpectedly found himself at the epicenter of a national voting debacle on Tuesday night as he covered Wisconsin’s primary, which featured the most closely watched race of the evening — the battle between democratic socialist Francesca Hong and moderate Milwaukee County executive David Crowley in the Democratic primary for governor. The surprisingly tight race came down to a late-night count of absentee ballots that went awry when elections officials failed to properly download results, leading to a 90-minute delay in counting that drew incredulity on national television. This week we spoke to Alex, who was there to document every step of the fiasco.

What was your reporting plan for election night?

The last election I spent in Milwaukee was November of 2024, and in that election, they had forgotten to properly secure some of the city tabulators. They announced that they had made a mistake, and the 30,000 votes they had tabulated at that point had to get tabulated again. So the last time I was there, they made a major mistake with the tabulators. Milwaukee sometimes makes these errors, and they become really high-profile errors because it's the biggest city in the state. The irony is we were going there this time around to cover all these new processes that the city officials developed to help ballot processing centers become more efficient. I went there to watch these new processes, and you know, from seven a.m. to 10 p.m. it was as smooth of an operation as I've ever seen in Milwaukee. You had 15 flawless hours. We even left the central vote counting facility without anything going wrong — or so we thought.

When did it become clear that something was wrong?

It wasn't until we got to the county courthouse that it became clear to the city that they didn't extract election results from five of the nine tabulators. After they get to the county courthouse, I think this is around maybe 11:30 p.m. or so, a couple of city election officials go into the county clerk's office. A few other city election officials are outside in a waiting room area and the county clerk opens the door and calls them in, with not the happiest look on his face, and that was kind of the first indication that something went wrong.

What did go wrong?

Milwaukee absentee ballots are all processed in a single place known as central count. You process and tabulate all the results there and then you download the results from the city's tabulators and drive them to the county clerk’s office where they extract them and post the results. In this election, they were using nine tabulators. I'd say the first thing in hindsight that should have indicated to election officials that there was an error was that it took about 10 minutes to withdraw results from the first tabulator. Then, all of the sudden they’re extracting results in three minutes. In hindsight, it takes 10 minutes to download results, not three. How are they going so quickly? They're going quickly because they're doing it wrong. They clicked the wrong button on the tabulator.

A variety of high-profile people seized on this as evidence that there are problems with American elections. What does this say about the integrity of voting in the country?

I guess, for better or worse, it's evidence that elections are run by humans, and humans could get everything right, and sometimes they could get a little bit wrong. But it's not evidence of fraud or tampering. It's evidence of exhausted people making one pretty critical mistake at the end of what was pretty much an 18-hour workday for them. Obviously, they'd prefer that this didn't happen. Voters would prefer that this didn't happen. They're going to try not to do this in November. So it's indicative that humans make mistakes, which is unfortunate, and it's definitely not indicative of anything worse than that.

What’s the fallout likely to be? Is anyone in danger of losing their job?

That's not immediately clear. I think people want answers. Rep. Scott Krug has been a pragmatic Republican voice on election issues in the state Assembly. He called me after the election and the big thing he pointed out was: Thank god for them this didn't happen in November. There was no shortage of conspiracy theories after this mistake on Tuesday. But he couldn't imagine if this happened in November. It would have been a PR disaster. Scott had this colorful quote for November saying ‘it’s a nightmare waiting to happen if they're not on top of their s**t.’ And I think it's largely true.