Election Power Grab? DHS Cash On The Line

The Trump administration is threatening to cut millions in homeland security money from states that refuse to overhaul their election rules — and the fight over who actually controls how Americans vote is heating up fast.

Story Snapshot

States that don’t adopt Trump’s election reforms could lose up to 20% of their Department of Homeland Security (DHS) grant funding.
New rules require states to switch to hand-marked paper ballots, check voter rolls for noncitizens, and run manual election audits.
Trump’s March 2025 executive order on elections was partly blocked by federal courts, but the DHS grant conditions are a separate — and still active — pressure tool.
The Constitution gives states and Congress — not the president — the primary power to set election rules, raising real legal questions about this approach.

What the Trump Administration Is Demanding

The Trump administration has sent new grant rules to states that tie DHS homeland security funding to a list of election changes. States must switch to hand-marked paper ballots, run their full voter rolls through a federal citizenship database called the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program, conduct manual election audits using methods approved by the administration, and verify the citizenship of poll workers. States that refuse could lose up to 20% of their DHS grant money — potentially millions of dollars. ^[1]

DHS grants have long required that at least 3% of funds go toward election security. The new rules go much further, adding mandatory reforms with steep penalties attached. The administration says these steps are needed to stop voter fraud and protect election integrity. Trump has also publicly tied DHS funding to his broader election agenda, urging Republicans to block any DHS funding deal until Democrats agree to pass the SAVE America Act, a voter identification bill. ^[1]

The Legal Fight Over Who Controls Elections

The U.S. Constitution’s Elections Clause gives states the primary power to set the “times, places, and manner” of federal elections. Congress holds a backup role to step in when needed. The president holds no direct power to rewrite election rules. Courts have already weighed in — a federal court permanently blocked part of Trump’s March 2025 executive order on elections, ruling that the president cannot unilaterally change how Americans register to vote. ^[2]

The DHS grant conditions are a separate mechanism from the executive order, but they raise similar legal questions. Federal courts have long held that the government can attach conditions to grants — but those conditions must be clear, related to the purpose of the funding, and not so heavy-handed that states have no real choice. The Supreme Court drew that line in *NFIB v. Sebelius* in 2012, ruling for the first time that a federal spending condition had crossed into unconstitutional coercion. ^[15]

A Tactic With a Track Record — and Real Risks

Using federal funding as leverage over states is not new. The first Trump administration tried the same approach with immigration enforcement, tying grant money to cooperation with federal immigration law. That effort ended in mixed results — four federal appeals courts ruled it was unlawful, while one upheld it. The key question courts asked was not whether the conditions were politically controversial, but whether Congress had clearly authorized the executive branch to attach them in the first place. ^[18]

For conservatives who have long pushed for paper ballots, citizenship verification, and tighter voter rolls, the administration’s goals are easy to support. Election integrity is a real concern, and many of these reforms — like hand-marked paper ballots and checking voter rolls — are common-sense measures that most Americans would back. The stronger argument here is for Congress to pass these rules directly, which would put them on solid constitutional ground. Doing it through grant pressure alone invites court challenges that could tie everything up for years and leave the reforms in limbo.