Trump Admin Ties Terrorism Grants to Paper Ballots and Voter Checks

Federal agencies are requiring states to adopt paper ballots, verify citizenship on voter rolls and conduct manual audits of 5 percent of ballots to receive portions of roughly $1 billion in annual anti-terrorism preparedness grants administered by FEMA. The Justice Department separately sent letters to election officials in all 50 states and the District of Columbia giving them five days to explain how they will maintain voter lists limited to citizens and warning that knowing retention of noncitizens could lead to criminal charges for aiding and abetting illegal voting. Noncitizen voting in federal elections remains extremely rare according to prior federal assessments. Several Democratic state officials described the letters as threats and noted prior court rulings that blocked earlier administration attempts to require use of federal immigration databases for voter verification. Every state already performs some form of post-election audit, though the new 5 percent manual standard would apply uniformly. New York stands to receive about $204 million in the affected grants for fiscal year 2026. Homeland Security officials stated that election integrity is a priority and that grant recipients must demonstrate compliance. Critics including David Becker of the Center for Election Innovation and Research argued the conditions would increase costs and delay results without improving security. Courts have previously ruled that the Constitution assigns primary authority over election administration to the states.