On August 26, 2025, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) quietly appointed Heather Honey—a Pennsylvania-based activist known for promoting false claims of voter fraud—to the newly created post of deputy assistant secretary for election integrity. The move has stirred a hornet’s nest among election officials, voting rights advocates, and political observers, who worry the appointment signals a shift in federal election oversight just as the nation gears up for the 2026 midterm elections.
Honey, who co-founded PA Fair Elections and has been a central figure in efforts to cast doubt on the 2020 and 2024 election results, now holds a role that places her at the heart of the federal government’s election integrity efforts. According to the DHS website, her position falls within the Office of Strategy, Policy and Plans—a division tasked with shaping the department’s approach to safeguarding the nation’s voting infrastructure. Notably, this role did not exist during President Joe Biden’s administration, highlighting a new direction under President Donald Trump’s return to office.
Honey’s rise to federal office follows a well-worn pattern in Trump’s political orbit: those who have echoed or amplified his unsupported claims of election fraud are often rewarded with influential government posts. As reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer, Honey is widely recognized as one of Pennsylvania’s most prolific election deniers. She has devoted significant time and resources to promoting unsubstantiated allegations of widespread fraud in the 2020 election—claims that were repeatedly cited by Trump and his allies as they sought to overturn his loss to Biden.
Her research, which critics say is frequently based on incomplete or misleading data, has had tangible effects on election administration. According to Votebeat Pennsylvania, Honey’s findings motivated several Republican secretaries of state to withdraw from the Election Registration Information Center (ERIC), a bipartisan system designed to help states maintain accurate voter rolls. In the run-up to the 2024 election, Honey’s organization urged election officials to purge hundreds of voters from the rolls based on what experts described as unreliable data. In the final days before the election, activists working with her group filed hundreds of unsuccessful challenges to mail ballots, further fueling confusion and distrust.
It’s not just her research that has drawn scrutiny. Honey also runs several entities—including Lebanon-based Haystack LLC, Verity Vote, and the Elections Research Institute—that have been active in promoting stricter voting policies, particularly those aimed at preventing noncitizens from voting. She is closely tied to Cleta Mitchell, a senior legal fellow at the Conservative Partnership Institute, who has been a leading voice in Republican efforts to push for more restrictive voting rules—even though instances of noncitizen voting are exceedingly rare and already illegal.
Election experts are sounding the alarm about Honey’s new federal role. David Becker, founder of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research, told The Philadelphia Inquirer, “All of these things play into an effort that we’re going to see accelerate to potentially interfere with the 2026 elections and delegitimize them if they don’t go the way the president wants them to.” Becker further warned, “I think it’s highly possible that, given this appointment, and … the false conspiracy theories she’s raised, that we’ll see DHS become an amplifier for false claims about future elections.”
These concerns are not happening in a vacuum. Earlier in August 2025, the Department of Justice sent letters to more than a dozen states—including Pennsylvania—demanding detailed information about how they maintain their voter rolls and requesting access to full, unredacted voter registration databases. At the same time, DHS slashed funding to several key election security programs, moves that some state officials interpret as a weakening of the federal government’s commitment to protecting the integrity of U.S. elections.
For many observers, the convergence of these actions—Honey’s appointment, the DOJ’s data requests, and the funding cuts—suggests a broader strategy to reshape how the federal government interacts with state and local election officials. In the words of one election official interviewed by The Philadelphia Inquirer, “DHS has lost trust among state election officials as it dismantled systems and expertise built, largely during Trump’s first term, to ensure election security and information sharing.”
Honey’s appointment has also reignited debates about the role of partisanship in election oversight. While supporters argue that her experience as an investigator and her commitment to rooting out fraud make her well-suited for the job, critics counter that her track record is defined by promoting discredited theories and attempting to disenfranchise legitimate voters. As noted by The Philadelphia Inquirer, Honey led an unsuccessful effort to cancel the votes of hundreds of Pennsylvanians in the 2024 election cycle—an episode that, for many, epitomizes the dangers of allowing partisanship to dictate election policy.
Adding to the controversy is the uncertainty surrounding Honey’s ongoing affiliations. According to her biography on the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference website, she continues to run Haystack LLC, Verity Vote, and the Elections Research Institute, though it remains unclear whether she will retain these roles while serving at DHS. Neither Honey nor DHS responded to requests for comment about the nature of her new position or how she plans to balance her various professional responsibilities.
The new deputy assistant secretary’s influence is already being felt. In the lead-up to her appointment, activists aligned with Honey’s organizations ramped up efforts to challenge voter eligibility and question the legitimacy of mail-in ballots. Though these challenges were largely unsuccessful, they contributed to a climate of suspicion and heightened the sense of uncertainty surrounding the electoral process.
For voting rights advocates and many nonpartisan election officials, the stakes couldn’t be higher. The 2026 midterm elections are expected to be fiercely contested, and the integrity of the voting process will be under intense scrutiny. With DHS now led in part by an official whose reputation is built on questioning election outcomes, the battle over how—and by whom—American elections are overseen has entered a new and unpredictable phase.
As the nation looks ahead to another pivotal election cycle, the appointment of Heather Honey to a top federal election integrity post serves as a stark reminder of just how contested—and consequential—the fight over voting rights and election security has become.
