Iowa’s top elections official concerned over cybersecurity funding pause

Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate expressed concern Friday about the Trump administration’s pause on federal election cybersecurity programs during an appearance on “Iowa Press.”

In an interview for the Iowa PBS show, Pate told reporters he would “not want to see” the cybersecurity systems go away.

“If those (systems) were to go away, it would be pretty serious, and we've had conversations with them on that regard,” Pate said. “Feedback I'm getting is that we will see continuing some type of security support. They're reformatting it, and of course, I'm waiting anxiously to find out what that looks like. But we do count on a lot of those cyber protections.”

Last month, the Associated Press reported the Trump administration had cut about $10 million in funding that the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency provides to the nonprofit Center for Internet Security, which helps businesses and governments protect themselves against cyber threats.

Trump also called Wednesday for the U.S. Department of Justice to launch an investigation into CISA Director Chris Krebs, according to NBC. Krebs, who was appointed by Trump during his first term, countered Trump in 2020 after the president falsely claimed that he had won that year’s election.

During his time in office, Pate has advocated for strengthening cybersecurity in elections by creating partnerships with tech companies, including Cisco, FireEye and Microsoft.

Asked about his thoughts on election-related legislation passed this week by the U.S. House that would require proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote for federal elections, Pate said he is supportive of the bill, adding that he has some concerns about how it will work with current state laws around acceptable identification.

“Much of it is parallel to what we're trying to do here right now,” Pate said. “I personally prefer my approach, and that is one where we deal with all this at the voter registration level, rather than the day they're voting, because then we can do it in a much more user-friendly approach.”

Investigating illegally cast ballots

In March, Pate's office announced there were 40 votes cast out of 277 Iowans on the voter registration list who he identified as not being full U.S. citizens and therefore being ineligible to vote in the 2024 election. Five of the ballots were rejected and not counted.

Pate referred the names of 62 Iowans without U.S. citizenship who either cast ballots on Election Day, cast provisional ballots on Election Day that were counted, returned absentee ballots or registered to vote in 2024 but did not vote to the Iowa Attorney General’s Office and Iowa Department of Public Safety.

Pate said compiling the list was necessary after his office was not granted access to a federal program that stores information about noncitizens on public assistance programs called the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program, or SAVE.

“That was our attempt, if you will, because we were limited by the fact the federal government wasn't giving us the list we needed at the time, so I’m pretty confident we did the best method we could at the time,” Pate said.

This investigation came after Pate’s office provided a list of over 2,000 names to local elections officials during the 2024 election whose citizenship his office was unable to confirm. Pate's office instructed county auditors to have poll workers challenge the ballots of anyone on the list attempting to vote. Instead, the people on the list were to cast provisional ballots and would have a week to provide documentation of their citizenship.

Pate’s list of voters concerned some, including legislative Democrats who questioned whether ballots of eligible voters were thrown out.

Pate said he didn’t know of any eligible ballots that had been turned away, but didn’t rule it out entirely.

“There has been discussion about the early voting people who may have and then the fact that they didn't respond back to the auditor when they were reached because they may have been traveling or something else, and that was unfortunate,” Pate said. “But that happens in other ways. We have people who vote absentee, who failed to sign a ballot, or some other errors on the ballot, and they don't get counted.”

Election bills in the Legislature

Pate also doubled down on his support for a slate of election-related bills making their way through both chambers of the Iowa Legislature, including House File 954, which addresses elections laws regarding voter registration, citizenship and major party status.

One section would add citizenship status to the list of questions an election precinct official may ask a challenged voter under oath, and create new language on declaration forms confirming the voter is a U.S. citizen, which critics have said would place more burdens on poll workers and dissuade people from voting.

But Pate said confirming citizenship status is something poll workers are already able to do.

The bill was sent to the governor’s desk Monday after passing the Republican-controlled House and Senate along party lines.

Pate also expressed support for House File 928, which would address Iowa’s recount laws.

“Recounts should look the same no matter what county you're in,” Pate said. “We're a bit polarized in elections. We've got some that are really, really close, and this keeps happening over and over and over, so I don't think it's going away.”