Judge blocks DHS and FEMA from linking counterterrorism grants to election rules

A federal judge on September 28 blocked the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency from withholding counterterrorism grant money from jurisdictions that refused to adopt the Trump administration’s election-administration requirements.¹

U.S. District Judge Amir H. Ali of the District of Columbia ruled that Congress did not authorize the agencies to attach those conditions to the Homeland Security Grant Program. He vacated the challenged FEMA conditions, finding that the agencies exceeded their statutory authority by tying public-safety funding to changes involving ballot systems, audits, voter-roll checks and poll-worker eligibility rules.¹

The court denied the plaintiffs’ request for a permanent injunction but said vacatur was the proper remedy for the unlawful agency action.¹

The case was brought by the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee; Harris County, Texas; the City of Columbus, Ohio; El Paso County, Texas; Travis County, Texas; and Dallas County, Texas.² The plaintiffs argued that DHS and FEMA were using anti-terrorism money to impose federal election policy on state and local governments shortly before voting begins in the November 3 midterms.³

What the court struck down

The dispute centered on FEMA’s fiscal year 2026 Homeland Security Grant Program notice. It said states and covered urban areas had to comply with election-related requirements or risk losing access to 20% of their grant awards.¹

The conditions included plans to move away from some electronic voting systems toward hand-marked paper ballots, a 5% post-election manual audit, voter-to-ballot reconciliation, use of the federal SAVE system to verify voter-roll citizenship, and citizenship verification for poll workers and others operating election systems.¹

Ali wrote that the grant statutes authorize FEMA to fund projects proposed by states and high-risk urban areas to prevent, prepare for, protect against and respond to terrorism. They do not, he found, allow FEMA to use grant funding to force states or local governments to pay for the administration’s preferred election changes.¹

The opinion distinguished between protecting election infrastructure from terrorism-related threats, which FEMA may fund, and prescribing routine election-administration rules as a condition of receiving counterterrorism grants.¹ The court said FEMA had not shown how the specific conditions, including voter citizenship checks and ballot-form requirements, were tied to the statutory goal of reducing vulnerabilities to terrorist attacks.¹

Plaintiffs called the ruling a public-safety win

Harris County Attorney Abbie Kamin said the ruling protected public-safety money from being used to force unrelated election changes. The county attorney’s office said Harris County had led the coalition challenging the conditions.²

The plaintiff jurisdictions said the requirements would have been costly, impractical and unlawful, particularly so close to the election calendar.²

The Brennan Center for Justice, one of the groups representing the plaintiffs, said the ruling preserves local access to public-safety funding used for first responders and counterterrorism work without requiring jurisdictions to overhaul election procedures ahead of the midterms.³

Protect Democracy, also counsel in the case, described the conditions as an attempt to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in terrorism-prevention funds unless states and local governments adopted five mandatory election changes.⁴

The ruling affects a grant program created after the September 11 attacks to support state, local and tribal preparedness against terrorism. The court noted that Congress typically appropriates about $1 billion to $2 billion annually for the program, including roughly $1 billion for fiscal year 2026.¹

Appeal question remains before the midterms

The administration had not immediately said whether it would appeal the September 28 ruling, according to Reuters, which reported that DHS and the Justice Department did not immediately comment.⁵

Any appeal could move the fight into the final weeks before the November 3 midterms, as election officials prepare voting systems, staff polling places and carry out pre-election procedures.

The Associated Press reported that the challenged conditions were part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to shape how elections are run, a role traditionally handled by states subject to federal law enacted by Congress.⁶ AP also reported that a separate lawsuit by 25 state attorneys general or governors challenging similar grant conditions remains pending.⁶

For now, Ali’s ruling narrows the administration’s ability to use federal public-safety grants as leverage over election administration. The opinion does not decide whether the administration’s preferred election policies are good or bad. It holds that DHS and FEMA lacked congressional authorization to attach them to these counterterrorism funds.¹