The Trump administration announced Friday that states will have to adopt a series of federal election security measures to receive certain Federal Emergency Management Agency grant funding, marking the latest effort to influence how states administer elections ahead of the 2026 midterms.
The Department of Homeland Security said recipients of FEMA-administered homeland security grants will be required to implement what it called “common-sense election security measures” before receiving funding.
“These new requirements for homeland security grant recipients will preserve election integrity and ensure that Americans can trust the results,” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in a statement.
Funding tied to election changes
According to FEMA grant guidance, up to 20% of funding under the State Homeland Security Program and the Urban Area Security Initiative may be withheld until states certify compliance with the administration’s election security requirements. The affected grant programs distribute roughly $1 billion annually for terrorism prevention, cybersecurity, emergency preparedness, and critical infrastructure protection.
Among the requirements are:
- Verification of the citizenship of registered voters and election workers.
- Documentation of election audits.
- Plans to transition jurisdictions that rely on barcode- or QR code-based ballot tabulation toward hand-marked paper ballots.
The administration has argued that election infrastructure is part of the nation’s critical security framework and that stronger safeguards are necessary to bolster public confidence in election results.
States question federal authority
Election administration has historically been handled by states, and several state officials and election law experts have questioned whether the executive branch has the legal authority to condition homeland security grants on changes to state voting procedures.
The announcement follows a series of recent actions by the administration aimed at reshaping election administration, including Justice Department letters requesting voter registration records from all 50 states and President Donald Trump’s removal of the remaining commissioners of the bipartisan U.S. Election Assistance Commission.
Legal challenges expected
The new FEMA conditions are expected to face legal scrutiny.
Courts have already blocked portions of previous Trump administration efforts to impose nationwide election rules through executive action, with judges finding that the Constitution grants states broad authority over the administration of elections absent congressional action.
Whether the administration can ultimately enforce the new grant conditions may depend on future court rulings. In the meantime, states seeking the affected homeland security funding will have to decide whether to comply with the new requirements or challenge them in court.
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It’s just common sense! Why does the left fear it so much?
They are cheating, they have always chested. They plan to cheat this Fall in a big way. The democrat Dead rise every election like zombies and march to the drop boxes.
Needed & Yes awesome
It is hard to watch how nearly 100% of Congressional Representatives and Senators with D next to their names defy the will of more than 60% of their own constituents who want the SAFE Act to pass.
Yet Democrats still elect Muslims and Communists and plan to replace the Americans with these people as soon as they can pull it off. They told us to keep our tin foil hats on in the past but now they have the results of the primaries that prove this is happening in every Blue city!