<p class="wp-block-paragraph">A federal judge in Washington, D.C., barred the Trump administration from withholding certain counterterrorism grant funding from states that do not comply with specific election security measures.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Judge Amir Ali, appointed by President Biden, stated in his opinion that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) could not impose election reform standards as a condition for receiving counterterrorism funding. The DHS had previously informed certain cities that they would need to implement five election security changes or risk losing 20% of their grant funding.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">“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.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The grants in question were part of the Urban Area Security Initiative and State Homeland Security Grant Program. DHS had linked these grants to what they termed “common-sense election security measures” in July.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The five federal election security commitments included transitioning vote-counting equipment away from barcoded or QR-code ballots, manually auditing 5% of all ballots cast after elections to ensure accuracy, counting the number of cast ballots to match the number of voters, and using the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database to verify the citizenship of voters and poll workers.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The July announcement was part of an administration effort to enhance election security, which has been a priority for President Donald Trump ahead of the midterm elections.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">“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 stated in July.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Several cities and communities across the United States filed a lawsuit against DHS regarding the grant-withholding policy in August, leading to Ali’s order on Monday.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Ali criticized the administration for threatening to withhold funds “to carry out the federal government’s preferred projects at their own expense.”</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">“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.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Ali fully vacated DHS’s election administration conditions and the 20% holdback requirement in his order.</p>