Ballot box ready for use. On June 2, 2026, Prairie Oak Lodge in Marion, Iowa, will be used as a voting location.
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A federal judge ruled Monday to invalidate a Trump administration rule that withheld some counterterrorism funding from states unless they and certain local governments make certain changes to how they administer elections.
In his ruling, Judge Amir Ali said the Federal Emergency Management Agency exceeded its legal authority by “conditioning counterterrorism grants on changes in routine election administration.”
Ali also said FEMA, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, has not shown how desired changes in election administration are related to stopping terrorism.
Ali’s ruling in U.S. District Court in Washington came in response to a lawsuit filed in August by two counties in Texas, one county in Tennessee, and the city of Columbus, Ohio, challenging FEMA’s new rules.
New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, which represents some of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against FEMA and DHS, said on August 17 that FEMA’s conditions are “unconstitutional, endanger public safety, and endanger election security.”
“Over the past two years, courts have largely blocked repeated attempts by the administration to seize control of Congress and the states over elections,” the Brennan Center said at the time.
“DHS is now holding public safety funds hostage in an effort to force state and local governments to adopt some of the very policies that the administration has tried and failed.”
The Brennan Center said the funds that would have been seized if FEMA’s terms remained in place totaled tens of millions of dollars.
CNBC has reached out to the Brennan Center and the Department of Justice, which represents DHS and FEMA, for comment.
In June, FEMA issued a rule requiring “states and their respective high-risk metropolitan areas” to withhold 20% of their allocated counterterrorism funding from the federal government unless they make certain changes in election administration, Ali noted.
Urban areas in the United States overwhelmingly vote Democratic.
The changes include submitting a plan to transition from electronic voting systems using barcodes or QR codes to hand-written paper ballots. Conduct post-election manual audits of 5% of ballots based on guidelines specified by the federal government. Matching the number of voters and votes cast by each election jurisdiction in federal elections.
Required changes also include verifying the U.S. citizenship of every voter in the state’s registration database, as well as the citizenship of poll workers, election officials, and election system vendors.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) headquarters building photographed on February 13, 2026 in Washington, DC.
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“FEMA’s conditions here go beyond those authorized by Congress, as they are imposed on states and local governments at their own expense, rather than grant funding, and address routine election administration decisions rather than the type of terrorist threats contemplated by the statute,” Ali wrote.
“For example, Defendants argue that the condition requiring states to adopt FEMA’s proposed citizenship verification procedures when maintaining lists of registered voters ‘ensures that only U.S. citizens vote in U.S. elections,'” Ali wrote.
“But it is never explained how that or any other condition is linked to the purpose of reinforcing vulnerability to terrorist attack,” the judge said.
