DHS plans costly crackdown on states that don’t cooperate on election security

FIRST ON FOX: The Department of Homeland Security will withhold billions in preparedness grant funding from states that refuse to adopt new election security measures, including voter citizenship verification, post-election audits and expanded use of paper ballots.

The push comes as President Donald Trump and many Republicans slam states that do not want to let the federal government audit their voter rolls, while also criticizing the snail's-pace, widely criticized vote tabulations in states like California.

FEMA, a sub-agency of DHS, is making more than $1 billion in taxpayer funding available to states that want to participate in its Homeland Security Grant Program, but with a catch.

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To qualify for grants, states must submit plans to transition away from "unsecure electronic voting systems" that employ QR codes or barcodes instead of hand-marked paper ballots.

By doing so, the agency said, it provides a paper trail to quickly assess any alleged irregularities.

After each federal election, states seeking preparedness grants must conduct a manual audit of at least 5% of all ballots cast with the agency arguing a manual, random review will confirm voting-machine tabulations’ synthesis with paper ballots and identify any "manipulation."

States must also match the number of voters who participated in the election with the number of ballots cast and, within 120 days of any grant award, use the SAVE database — brought to the fore amid numerous illegal immigrant truckers getting in fatal crashes — to verify the citizenship of every listed voter in the state.

SAVE, the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system, has been criticized by some Democratic governors for being insufficiently maintained, an assertion DHS has denied.

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Voters inside a North Carolina polling place. (Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images)

DHS told Fox News Digital that threats to election systems continue to evolve and that Secretary Markwayne Mullin has made critical infrastructure protection a top priority. A spokesperson suggested elections fall within that critical infrastructure and remain susceptible to foreign attacks.

"Under President Trump’s leadership, we are taking decisive action to protect election systems from threats like foreign interference, insider threats and cyberattacks," the DHS spokesperson said. "These new requirements for homeland security grant recipients will preserve election integrity and ensure that Americans can trust the results."

The new rules come as the Trump administration had a major loss in court while seeking to force the issue of election security.

An Obama-appointed federal judge in Pittsburgh sided with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania after the Justice Department sued more than 25 states seeking voter records that included Social Security numbers.

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Voting booths at Glass Elementary School's polling station in Eagle Pass, Texas, Nov. 8, 2022 (Marke Felix/AFP via Getty Images)

Judge Cathy Bissoon ruled the feds lack authority to demand "highly sensitive" state information after Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt, a Philadelphia Republican appointed by Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, balked at a demand to turn over data last fall.

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Schmidt reportedly offered a redacted version of the state voter file without the sensitive data, telling the DOJ in his response that such "broad data" collection is a "concerning attempt to expand the federal government’s role in our country’s election process," according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

DHS’ new tact may or may not be tested in a similar fashion.