DHS Has Pulled Back on Tracking Election Disinformation ⇥ propublica.org

Andrea Bernstein and Ilya Marritz, ProPublica:

In early 2022, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, which is part of DHS, was in talks to deploy a federally funded nonprofit to protect election workers from harassment and violence.

The effort would have allowed elections officials to sign up for a service to protect them from having their identities and personal information exposed on the internet, known as doxxing. It also would have created a system to track and alert elections officials who were subject to serious threats on social media, including from foreign actors.

Around the same time, as lies about elections were becoming a central plank of GOP candidates, Republicans also began to attack the administration’s efforts. Some free-speech advocates also expressed concerns about government overreach.

Again, if the Intercept wanted to build a more complete context for its reporting, it would have included information like this about the DHS’ intended efforts. Bernstein and Marritz interviewed election officials who say they now spend their days explaining elementary civics to voters while worrying about their safety.