Trump admin cannot force states seeking funding to overhaul their election systems: Judge

29 Sep 2026, 13:12 by Conrad Hoyt · Law & Crime

Background: A citizen fills out her ballot at her polling place at the Burbank Early Childhood School in Columbus, Ohio, Tuesday, May 5, 2026, during the primary election. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster). Inset: Judge Amir H. Ali (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia).

The Trump administration cannot force local governments to overhaul their election systems in order to receive funds aimed at curbing terrorism, a federal judge ruled this week.

Local election offices seeking full counterterrorism grant payments cannot be compelled to "self-fund the various election administration reforms" that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) desires, U.S. District Judge Amir H. Ali wrote in a 24-page opinion on Monday.

"The conditions relating to election administration issues," wrote Ali, who sits on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, "fall well outside of preparing for or responding to 'acts of terrorism.'"

As the Joe Biden appointee detailed, with the approval of Congress, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) — an agency under the umbrella of DHS — administers grant programs based on the "relative threat, vulnerability, and consequences from acts of terrorism" faced by state and local governments, as well as the "anticipated effectiveness of the proposed use of the grant."

The programs at the center of this case — the Urban Area Security Initiative and State Homeland Security Grant Program — were affected when FEMA in June issued a Notice of Funding Opportunity ("NOFO") conditioning the funding based on "how states administer their elections."

"Specifically, the NOFO requires states and their respective high-risk urban areas to carry out certain changes to routine aspects of election administration, including ballot form, auditing and reconciliation rules, and the eligibility of voters and poll workers," Ali wrote in the ruling.

If the grant recipient did not comply, FEMA would withhold 20% of a state's grant funds until they did so, which could add up to hundreds of millions of dollars.

Several local governments — including the city of Columbus, Ohio, and Nashville, Tennessee — filed a lawsuit challenging this directive. They argued that DHS exceeded its legal authority by imposing conditions that had not been authorized by Congress.

Ali found this argument convincing.

"By authorizing FEMA to prioritize among different uses of grants proposed by states and high-risk urban areas, Congress in no way authorized FEMA to withhold grant funds to achieve the federal government's policy ends at state and local expense," he wrote.

In other words, Congress enabled FEMA to fund projects, not "to induce states or high-risk urban areas to carry out the federal government's preferred projects at their own expense," expenses that would credibly be "substantial," the judge added. "Yet extracting the federal government's preferred reforms at the state or high-risk urban area's expense is exactly what FEMA did here."

Ali hammered his point home further:

Second, and independently, Congress did not authorize the grant program to be used for the sort of election administration reforms FEMA demands here—changes that, whether sound or not as a matter of policy, are not advanced to prepare for or respond to "acts of terrorism."

The jurist made clear that the court "does not pass judgment on the soundness or importance of any of the election administration decisions" put forward by DHS or the counterclaims made by the local governments. Instead, he held that the decisions to demand these reforms be put into place were not authorized by Congress.

As a result, the judge vacated the NOFO's "election administration conditions and 20% holdback requirement."