U.S. communities sue DHS over scheme to force states to restrict voting by withholding anti-terrorism funds

Cities and counties across the U.S. sued the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Monday over its attempt to leverage grants meant to help prevent terrorist attacks to force states to adopt a slate of anti-voting measures.

The communities — Nashville and Davidson County in Tennessee, Harris and El Paso Counties in Texas and Columbus, Ohio — warned in their new lawsuit that the changes sought by the Trump administration would “alter how states and local jurisdictions administer elections” and would likely disenfranchise eligible voters.

They further argued that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which oversees the grants, has no authority to impose such conditions on states.

“Congress authorized FEMA to help jurisdictions protect critical infrastructure from terrorist and cyberattacks,” their suit reads. “It did not authorize FEMA to decide who may vote, how ballots must be counted, or how states maintain their voter rolls.”

The communities also said the new grant conditions were part of President Donald Trump’s ongoing attempt to seize power over elections that the Constitution gives to states and Congress. 

“Congress did not create the [Homeland Security Grant Program] to empower the federal government to control state and local election procedures,” they said in their complaint. “Never before has FEMA purported to regulate how states and counties run elections. Such a transformative assertion of federal authority in an area of traditional state control requires clear congressional authorization that FEMA does not have.”

The Brennan Center for Justice, Jacobson Lawyers Group, Protect Democracy and Public Rights Project are representing the communities.

In June, FEMA announced that it would withhold 20% of DHS’s $1 billion Homeland Security Grant Program from states and municipal governments unless they complied with new anti-voting measures sought by the Trump administration.

Under the new conditions proposed by FEMA, states and local governments would have to stop using certain election equipment, alter their ballot and audit procedures and adopt other changes to receive full funding.

They would also need to run their full voter rolls through a DHS database that the Trump administration has attempted to retrofit into a massive tool to monitor voting. Election experts have warned that the database has repeatedly falsely identified eligible voters — particularly naturalized citizens — as noncitizens.

Before FEMA’s announcement, state election officials in statements to Democracy Docket denounced the scheme as dangerous for both public safety and U.S. elections.

“Gutting Homeland Security funding to states that refuse to back down to the Trump Administration’s unconstitutional and illegal demands endangers American lives and democracy itself,” Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows (D) said at the time.

The new grant conditions were announced just days before Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin threatened state election officials with criminal charges if they did not comply with the Trump administration’s demands.

Last month, a group of 25 states and Washington, D.C., also sued DHS and FEMA over the grant conditions.