The Trump administration has indicated it may withhold tens of millions of dollars in election security funding if states don’t comply with its voting policy goals.
The money comes from a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) grant program, and voting officials say new requirements from the administration will make the money inaccessible for most of the country.
NPR is the first news outlet to report on the changes.
About $28 million — or 3% of the overall Homeland Security Grant Program — is devoted to election security and now at risk, though some officials and experts worry that the new requirements could also endanger hundreds of millions of dollars in other grants for law enforcement.
Voting officials say the amount of money at risk won’t make or break the country’s election security. But the potential withholding of funds over policy differences — combined with other recent election security cuts — has many wondering whether the Trump administration is prioritizing election security the way it claims it is.
“Despite the rhetoric, there’s been [a] serious cutback to election security support that is being offered to the states,” said Larry Norden, an elections expert at the Brennan Center for Justice, which is broadly critical of President Trump’s policies. “And this is going to be one more cut for a lot of states because most states are not going to allow the president to decide [how their elections work].”…