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More than two dozen states have filed a joint lawsuit seeking to prevent the Trump administration from limiting disaster relief funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) if they do not comply with the president’s demands on election systems changes.
Twenty-five states plus Washington, D.C. filed the suit in federal court in Rhode Island. The suit argues that rules imposed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), conditioning potential FEMA funds on burdensome election reforms, violate the Administrative Procedure Act, as well as spending rules laid out in the Constitution.
The administration is claiming that the changes are needed to prevent election fraud and address supposed vulnerabilities in election systems, citing President Donald Trump’s baseless conspiracy theories regarding his loss in the 2020 presidential election to former President Joe Biden.
Among other changes, DHS has told states they must:
- Use handmarked paper ballots instead of voting machines;
- Use a federal database (one that has a high error rate) to search for noncitizens within voter rolls;
- And hand over personal information of voters to the federal government.
A spokesperson for FEMA claimed that the move is legal, asserting that “election security is national security,” thus allowing the president to withhold funds to states that won’t take the matter seriously.
Democratic state attorneys general involved in the lawsuit have blasted the administration for its overreach.
“The Trump Administration is threatening to jeopardize public safety by unlawfully withholding billions in critical funding,” Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said in a statement.
Neronha continued:
This Administration is using the safety of Americans as collateral by attempting to bully the states into relinquishing their constitutional right to enact policies and laws that best serve their residents.
“They won’t get away with it,” he added.
“We’re back in court to ensure that these funds are distributed as Congress intended, not conditioned on an unlawful political agenda. Public safety should never become a bargaining chip,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said.
While Trump’s false claims of fraud have caused a significant number of Americans to doubt the outcomes of elections (culminating in the attack on the U.S. Capitol building by a mob of Trump loyalists on January 6, 2021), a majority of voters still have faith in the election process.
Only 26 percent of Americans believe Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was “rigged,” while 52 percent say it was not, according to a recent Economist/YouGov poll.
In a separate question, 69 percent of Americans said they are either “very” or “somewhat” confident that the 2026 midterms will be counted accurately. Only 30 percent said they couldn’t be sure.
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