No, the Homeland Security department isn't running a cybersecurity drill on Election Day

A recent Instagram post suggests something is afoot because of a homeland security event coinciding with Election Day. 

"Homeland Security is having a cybersecurity drill on the same day as the election," the Oct. 27 post said. "So don’t be surprised if some s--- goes down."

It included an image promoting a "Homeland Security Conference on Critical Infrastructure" Nov. 6 and 7 "with a large scale cybersecurity exercise" to be held Nov. 5.

But the conference was rescheduled Oct. 25, before the Instagram post was shared, and this claim is missing some critical details.

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

The event’s original agenda said that the Department of Homeland Security was expected to participate in the drill — a tabletop exercise — but the federal agency wasn’t hosting this conference.

Rather, the event was organized by the Atlanta chapter of AFCEA international, a professional organization aimed in part at strengthening global security, and the Federal Business Council, a small business that "specializes in producing meetings, conferences and trade show events for federal government agencies, the Department of Defense, and intelligence community throughout the United States," according to its website. (AFCEA used to to be called the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association but changed its name in 2018 "to reflect the association’s expanding mission to serve the global security community.")

AFCEA Atlanta announced Oct. 24 that it was rescheduling the conference for a yet-to-be-determined date.

"A rapid and unanticipated rise in rhetoric and threats stemming from disinformation about the purpose of the event and its proximity to Election Day contributed to the decision to postpone," a statement on the organization’s website said. 

The New York Times reported on the felled conference, noting that "the gathering had nothing to do with the election." 

Featured Fact-check

Threads posts

stated on October 22, 2024 in a Threads post

“The cheat has begun” because “Michigan, Georgia and Pennsylvania have officially announced that they will not have election results available on election night.”

"That didn’t stop conspiracy theorists from spreading falsehoods," the Nov. 1 story’s subheadline said. 

Since 2021, the conference has hosted tabletop exercises in which attendees discussed how to respond to "fictional disasters like plane crashes or water treatment issues," the Times reported, and this year’s scenario was expected to be related to transportation or the chemical industry.

In other words, not a specter of something "going down" on Election Day. And the facts underpinning that implication are wrong: The Homeland Security department isn’t running a cybersecurity drill on Election Day, and by the time this claim was published on social media, the AFCEA chapter hosting this event in Atlanta had already canceled its conference and accompanying tabletop exercise.  

We rate claims the Homeland Security department is having a cybersecurity drill on Election Day False.

PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird and Staff Writer Madison Czopek contributed to this report.