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DODO Publishes Collection of Election Security and Foreign Interference Resources Taken from Public View in the Early Days of the Trump Administration
DODO Publishes Collection of Election Security and Foreign Interference Resources Taken from Public View in the Early Days of the Trump Administration
September 30, 2025
September 30, 2025
In early 2025, the incoming Trump Administration removed or made inaccessible numerous resources on election security, foreign influence, and disinformation from the official websites of federal agencies, including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Inaccessible documents include guides, checklists, videos, and briefings aimed at informing the public and election officials in service of protecting the American electoral process from malign actors.
These changes were part of the Trump Administration’s dismantlement of some of America's election security apparatus, especially its defenses against foreign interference. As summarized by the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, since coming into office in January 2025, the second Trump Administration has:
Disbanded the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force in order “to free resources to address more pressing priorities.”
Downsized CISA, the agency the first Trump Administration created to counter cyber threats, including disinformation and foreign interference in elections.
Closed the Center for Countering Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference at the U.S. State Department, ostensibly in service of free speech.
To make sure election administrators, journalists, and concerned citizens continue to have access to meaningful resources to help combat foreign influence in elections, Doctors of Democracy (DODO) has launched the Foreign Interference in Elections Collection. This collection provides descriptions and access to otherwise inaccessible documents. The collection is possible due to the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, which archives and preserves the internet.
Visit the collection's page to access the resources and our technical page to view details of the removals.
Screenshots of removed resources.
If you know of a relevant removed resource that is not currently included in the Foreign Interference in Elections Collection, email us at info@doctorsofdemocracy.org so we can document it and add it to the collection.
What Was Made Inaccessible?
The content that was made inaccessible (and, in some cases, deleted from the internet) covered comprehensive strategies for defending elections against both domestic and foreign threats. Key resources and information that were archived or removed include:
CISA’s Election Security Resource Library: This extensive collection offered materials across four areas:
Foreign Influence and Disinformation: Documents detailing the tactics used by foreign actors to interfere with U.S. elections, often explicitly naming states especially Russia, China, and Iran.
Physical Security: Checklists and best practices for polling locations, election offices, ballot drop boxes, and mitigating insider threats.
Cybersecurity: Guides on essential defenses like Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), preventing Denial of Service (DoS) attacks, and securing voter registration data.
Operational Risk: Information on the post-election process and election results reporting.
"Rumor vs. Reality" Fact Sheets: This popular CISA resource was designed to directly combat election disinformation by debunking common myths about issues like mail-in ballots, vote counting changes, and the security of voting technology.
Public Service Announcements (PSAs) and Insights: Joint CISA-FBI documents warning about the use of generative AI and deepfakes by foreign threat actors in the 2024 election cycle, and analysis of disinformation tactics.
Technical Guides: Resources like the "Election Disinformation Toolkit," "Election Infrastructure Insider Threat Mitigation Guide," and "Mis-, Dis-, and Malinformation: Planning and Incident Response Guide for Election Officials" were all removed.
The changes occurred primarily between February and March 2025, and included:
Removal: Many key documents, especially those focused on foreign malign influence, were deleted from website servers, resulting in broken links.
Archiving and Orphanage: For other resources, links to them were removed from landing pages and resource libraries, effectively "orphaning" them. A user with the full URL can access them. However, the resources are now difficult to discover by the general public and election officials.
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