Trump administration can’t tie counterterrorism grants to election security, judge says

A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration cannot condition counterterrorism funds to state and local governments on how they administer elections.

Judge Amir Ali in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Monday alongside local governments in Texas, Ohio and Tennessee. They sued the Department of Homeland Security after it said it would withhold 20 percent of grants from FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, until local governments comply with a set of election security requirements.

The requirements, announced earlier this year, would require governments to check their voter rolls against a DHS citizenship database and manually audit at least 5% of ballots cast. They also call for the use of voting systems that accept hand-marked ballots.