US judge blocks election conditions on counterterrorism grants
A federal judge ruled that FEMA lacked authority to tie counterterrorism grants to election administration changes sought by the Trump administration.
Washington, United States. A federal judge on Monday blocked the Trump administration from making counterterrorism funding for state and local governments conditional on changes to election administration. The ruling is the latest setback to President Donald Trump’s efforts to expand federal authority over elections ahead of the November 3 midterms, when Republicans are seeking to retain their majorities in both houses of Congress.
Judge rules on grant conditions
US District Judge Amir Ali sided with counties and cities in Texas, Ohio and Tennessee that challenged the policy, ruling that the conditions exceeded the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s authority. A separate challenge brought by a coalition of mostly Democratic-governed states remains pending.
Earlier this year, the Department of Homeland Security said it would withhold 20 per cent of funding under grant programmes for preparing for terrorist attacks and other threats until recipients adopted election measures favoured by the administration. The programmes, which total about $1.1 billion, have existed for years and were not designed specifically for election security.
“Congress did not authorise the grant programme to be used for the sort of election administration reforms FEMA demands here – changes that, whether sound or not as a matter of policy, are not advanced to prepare for or respond to ‘acts of terrorism,’” wrote Ali, an appointee of Democratic President Joe Biden.
Proposed election requirements
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said when announcing the plan that the requirements would protect election systems from foreign interference and cyberattacks. Grant recipients would have had to use equipment that accepts hand-marked paper ballots rather than electronic voting systems, manually audit at least 5 per cent of ballots cast, and compare voter rolls with a DHS database to check that no noncitizens were registered.
Neither DHS nor the Justice Department, which represents the federal government in court, immediately responded to requests for comment.
Trump has long made false claims of widespread voting fraud in US elections, including the 2020 presidential election that he lost.
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