Cities in the states of Ohio, Tennessee and Texas filed a lawsuit this Monday against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for conditioning federal funds intended to prevent and respond to terrorist threats to the adoption of new electoral rules.
The Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee; Harris County and El Paso County, Texas; and the city of Columbus, Ohio, went to federal court in Washington, D.C. to challenge new requirements established by President Donald Trump's administration.
The lawsuit, filed with support from the Brennan Center for Justice, Protect Democracy, Public Rights Project and Jacobson Lawyers Group, alleges that DHS attempts to use public safety resources as a leverage mechanism to change the way states and local governments administer elections. The Brennan Center confirmed the presentation on August 17.
The conflict originated in June, when the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) published the conditions for the Homeland Security Grant Program, a roughly $1 billion scheme for state and local governments to prevent and respond to terrorist threats.
According to the Brennan Center, governments that do not comply with five new conditions will lose 20% of the funds corresponding to the program.
Among the demands is presenting a plan to abandon electronic voting systems that use barcodes or QR codes and move toward hand-marked paper ballots. They must also carry out manual post-election audits on at least 5% of the ballots and reconcile the number of voters with the total votes cast.
The administration also requires using the federal SAVE system to verify the citizenship of people registered in electoral rolls and those who work at voting centers, including administrators and electoral system providers.
Cities question Trump's authority
The plaintiffs maintain that the federal government cannot administratively impose electoral conditions that Congress did not establish when approving the funds.
The lawsuit argues that the measures violate the separation of powers, the constitutional clause that reserves to Congress authority over federal spending and the powers that correspond to the states and Congress to establish the rules of federal elections. It also accuses DHS of violating the Administrative Procedure Act.
Harris County Prosecutor Abbie Kamin called the move a misuse of federal power.
"Threatening to withhold the law enforcement and safety funding our agencies depend on, withholding the dollars that protect our communities for a partisan power grab is not only wrong, it is dangerous. Local control of elections is a guarantee rooted in the Constitution, and any attempt to change it must be vigorously defended."
El Paso County Attorney Christina Sanchez said the new obligations represent additional costs for local authorities.
"Local election offices already have some of the most stringent requirements and oversight efforts, designed to ensure the security and transparency of their operations. Imposing more requirements is costly, complicated and cumbersome, and on top of that, our law enforcement and judicial agencies rely on these funds to purchase essential equipment that helps them protect and save lives."
From Nashville, the director of the Metropolitan Government's Law Department, Tyler Yarbro, maintained that the resources are necessary for the preparation of emergency teams.
"The Trump administration wants to withhold these funds if we do not implement costly and wholly unnecessary changes to our election procedures. All courts involved have rejected the administration's efforts to interfere in the election."
A dispute that has already reached the courts
The lawsuit by the cities and counties is not the first judicial front against the conditions imposed by the Trump administration.
In July, 26 states filed another lawsuit against DHS and FEMA for linking federal emergency and homeland security funds to electoral changes and cooperation on immigration matters. Reuters reported that that coalition questioned whether the federal government was withholding 20% of more than $1 billion in resources until states adopted the new measures.
The case adds to a series of litigation over the Trump administration's attempts to intervene in the organization of the elections. In June, a federal court blocked parts of a Trump executive order that sought to change mail-in voting rules and create federal mechanisms to determine who could use that system.
Federal Judge Indira Talwani again blocked provisions of that order in August and held that the Executive lacks constitutional authority to impose national electoral rules. The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to intervene in the case.
