Protect Your Office

Over the past two decades, U.S. government offices and employees have been the target of multiple attacks using letters containing hazardous substances, mostly in powder form. In 2023, government offices were targeted with letters containing fentanyl, including suspicious letters mailed to election offices in multiple states. Since mail is a key component of both standard office operations and mail balloting across the country, hazardous substances present a potential risk to election officials handling mail.

Use these resources to mitigate against mailing of hazardous materials to election offices:

• Election Mail Handling Procedures to Protect Against Hazardous Materials - This guide provides an overview for election officials on preparing to handle mail safely, identifying potentially suspicious mail, and responding to potential hazardous materials exposure from handling mail.
• U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) resources for handling suspicious mail - Tips to protect yourself and others against suspicious mail.

In recent years, election officials have faced heightened levels of physical threats and harassment, and remain concerned about the potential for violence targeting themselves, election workers, and election infrastructure. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) 2024 Homeland Threat Assessment election cycle highlighted the possibility of actors disrupting election processes or directing violence or threats toward election infrastructure and personnel.

Use these resources to mitigate against physical acts of violence:

• Physical Security Checklist for Election Offices - This checklist provides questions designed to help election officials identify areas to enhance physical security at election infrastructure facilities and take action to implement low- or no-cost options in the short term.
• Enhancing Election Security Through Public Communications - This guide helps election officials apply communication best practices to election processes.
• Non-confrontational Techniques for Election Workers Training - A video to empower poll workers and election officials to safely navigate potentially escalating situations at election facilities and polling locations.
• Security Assessment at First Entry (SAFE) - A stand-alone assessment, featuring standard language, high level vulnerabilities, and options for consideration.
• Election Security Training - CISA offers trainings at no cost to election infrastructure stakeholders at convenings of election officials, such as election official association meetings and other similar events. All training offerings are customizable and can be tailored to meet specific stakeholder needs. Trainings are available in person and virtually, usually running 30 to 90 minutes. If needed, CISA can provide an online platform for virtual sessions.
• Physical Security of Voting Locations and Election Facilities - This general guide provides resources and actionable steps to connect, plan, train, and report that election officials should consider to improve the physical security posture and enhance the resilience of election operations in their jurisdiction.
• The Personal Security Considerations Action Guide: Critical Infrastructure Workers - This guide helps critical infrastructure workers assess their security posture and provide options to consider whether they are on or off the job. It provides actionable recommendations and resources intended to prevent and mitigate threats to a critical infrastructure worker’s personal safety.
• What to Do: Bomb Threats: This guidance document provides an overview of bomb threats and some recommended practices to mitigate the impacts associated with these threats. While these threats can be connected to actual acts of violence in which explosives are used, they are increasingly used as a tactic to disrupt, distract, or harass locations or organizations. The operational, financial, and psychological impacts that bomb threats can have on a location, an organization, an event, a community, and personnel can be dangerous and costly, even if no explosive device is present.

Malicious actors can use generative AI tools to impersonate your staff or produce materials, such as fake press releases or election records, alleged to be from your office or systems. Adding authentication and provenance measures to election information released outside your organization can serve as an extra layer of defense against malicious actors leverage generative AI tools to target elections.

Use these resources to mitigate against malicious use of generative AI:

• Risk in Focus:- Generative A.I. and the 2024 Election Cyle - This fact sheet provides an overview of relevant generative AI-enabled capabilities, how these capabilities can be used by malicious actors to target the security and integrity of election infrastructure, and basic mitigations to counter the enhanced risks from generative AI-enabled capabilities.
• Coalition for Content Provenance and Authentication (C2PA) - An open-source technical standard, C2PA offers organizations the ability to certify the source and history of different types of media they produce.