A federal judge in Washington, D.C., barred the Trump administration from holding back certain counterterrorism grant funding from states that do not comply with select election security measures.
Biden-appointed Judge Amir Ali of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia wrote in his opinion that the Department of Homeland Security could not insist on certain election reform standards for a community to receive counterterrorism funding. The federal department had notified certain cities that they had to comply with five election security changes, or else 20% of the grant funding would be withheld.
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“The conditions relating to election administration issues — such as the form of ballots, auditing and reconciliation rules, and the eligibility of voters and poll workers — fall well outside of preparing for or responding to ‘acts of terrorism,'” Ali wrote in his opinion on Monday.
The grants in question were select Urban Area Security Initiative and State Homeland Security Grant Program funds. DHS had hinged those grants on what they called the “common-sense election security measures” back in July.
The five federal election security commitments were to transition vote-counting equipment away from barcoded or QR-code ballots, to manually audit 5% of all ballots cast postelection to ensure the count accuracy, to count the number of cast ballots to ensure it aligns with the number of voters, and to use the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database to verify voter and poll worker citizenship.
The July announcement was another administration effort to ensure election security, a hallmark priority for President Donald Trump, ahead of the midterm elections.
“We are going to make our security enhancements mandatory, meaning that if these states want a grant and they want to be reimbursed to work or to run federal elections, they’re going to have to implement security,” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in July.
Several cities and communities across the United States sued DHS over the grant-withholding policy in August, leading to Ali’s Monday order.
Ali ripped the administration for threatening to withhold the funds “to carry out the federal government’s preferred projects at their own expense.”
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“The statute does not authorize FEMA to withhold counterterrorism grants until states and high-risk urban areas achieve policy objectives on their own dime,” Ali wrote.
Ali fully vacated DHS’s election administration conditions and 20% holdback requirement in his order.
