Harris County filed suit against the Trump administration Monday over what it says is an attempt to use public safety grants as leverage to hijack local elections, according to court documents. 

The plaintiffs claim that local governments are being forced to comply with illegal election conditions or risk losing tens of millions of dollars in crucial funding that, for years, has gone toward counterterrorism grants, natural disaster response and other emergencies. 

According to the lawsuit, FEMA will hold 20 percent of every state’s Homeland Security grant award hostage — representing more than $200 million nationwide — unless local governments meet the following conditions: 

  • Transition to using hand-marked ballots instead of electronic voting systems already used in many places 
  • Manually audit at least 5 percent of ballots, which would add significant new costs and be contrary to state law in some cases
  • Use the error-prone Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system to verify the citizenship of every registered voter and election worker

Harris County; Columbus, Ohio; the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee; and the City of El Paso are being represented by California-based Public Rights Project in the case against the federal government.

Toby Merrill, litigation director for the Public Rights Project, said in a statement that the Department of Homeland Security’s new grant conditions would make elections more costly, more difficult to administer and less reliable.

“DHS is trying to use homeland security funding to dramatically reshape how local governments run elections,” he said. “These new conditions would undermine the local control that has helped make our elections safe and secure for decades. We’re proud to stand with cities and counties fighting to protect their communities from this harmful federal overreach.”

Attorneys with Protect Democracy, the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University and Jacobson Lawyers Group are also on the case, claiming that the grant conditions violate the Constitution and jeopardize public safety. 

Harris County Attorney Abbie Kamin said in a statement she expects this kind of federal overreach from the Trump administration. 

“This latest effort is part of a series of moves by the Trump Administration to interfere with local elections, including attempts to derail mail-in voting, that stand to disenfranchise voters,” said the county attorney. Kamin recently joined a separate lawsuit to halt Trump’s efforts to have the U.S. Postal Service refuse delivery of mail ballots for voters who aren’t on a list of approved American citizens. 

The latest effort is a partisan power grab that’s improper and dangerous, Kamin added. “Our democracy depends on local control over elections, and we must vigorously guard against any attempt to upend it,” she said. 

At risk for the Houston region is a $584 million Urban Area Security Initiative to enhance regional preparedness and capabilities in designated high-threat, high-density areas. The funds are used for purchasing law enforcement equipment, sustaining terrorism education programming, and tracking chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive matter. 

Kamin said Monday that the Constitution gives Congress the authority to set the terms of federal spending and provides states with the power to make rules for elections; therefore she asserts that the Trump administration has no legal authority to unilaterally force the election changes on Harris County.  

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