Trump administration uses DHS funds as leverage to push state election changes

The Trump administration plans to withhold tens of millions in homeland security grants to force states to adopt sweeping election changes, including phasing out electronic voting systems in favor of hand-marked paper ballots and routing voter rolls through the DHS citizenship-verification database SAVE. States that refuse would lose 20% of their DHS funding. The move aims to curb alleged voter fraud but faces legal hurdles since election administration is traditionally controlled by states; the package also mandates manual audits and other security steps, with DHS grants totaling over $1 billion this year and potential multi-billion-dollar upgrade costs for states.