Alerts & Warnings in 2026 Elections

The panel opens with the 2020 election, when foreign actors sent threatening emails to voters in several states, posing as a far-right group. The same campaign included a video showing a stolen voter file, a weakly exposed voter lookup application in Alaska, and a spike in downloads of a military absentee ballot form. Each signal looked small on its own. Federal agencies combined them, attributed the activity within about a day, and briefed election officials and the public quickly. The speakers present that pipeline as a success that depended on trusted relationships between federal agencies and local election offices.

Since then, the panelists say, that federal capacity has shrunk. Jurisdictions that once relied on free federal assessments and scans have built their own testing, response plans, and vendor contracts, but they can no longer learn from incidents happening elsewhere. A volunteer coalition formed in 2025 now issues alerts, guidance, and referrals. Voting system vendors have kept a coordinating council running, and election groups are trying to route vulnerability reports to the right local offices.

In audience questions, the panelists addressed audits and certification, pointing to reconciliation, hand counts, and public certification steps. Their advice to researchers is to build local relationships with election offices before disclosing findings, and to join as poll workers or auditors to see the process firsthand.