Legal expert tears apart Trump's 'extortion' of blue states

New reporting has uncovered a White House policy that withholds antiterrorism funds from states that don’t comply with the Trump administration’s election rules. This effort, declared a former US attorney on Wednesday, amounts to “extortion.”

“Threatening to withhold federal antiterrorism funds from states unless they comply with Trump’s demands regarding elections is nothing but extortion,” posted Barb McQuade, who in addition to serving as a US attorney is currently a professor at the University of Michigan Law School and legal analyst for MSNOW.

As CNN revealed in late June, “The Trump administration is threatening to withhold tens of millions of dollars in federal homeland security funds from states unless they adopt a sweeping set of election changes.” These changes include “phasing out certain electronic voting systems and moving to hand-marked paper ballots. They must also run their voter rolls through a controversial Department of Homeland Security citizenship verification database.” States that don’t comply will lose DHS grants totaling more than $1 billion annually. These funds “are one of Washington’s main vehicles for helping state and local governments prevent terrorism, protect infrastructure and prepare for major disasters.”

According to the New York Times, “The changes could face numerous legal roadblocks, partly because the executive branch does not have constitutional authority to regulate elections, which states administer and Congress broadly oversees.” As McQade notes, “Conditions on grants must be tied to the purpose of the grant.”

A judge has already barred the Trump administration from forcing states to “use a centralized national database of citizens built for checking immigration status, known as the SAVE system, to verify voters on their rolls, saying the move violated at least three laws. Two provisions in the FEMA grants would require the same process.” Under these provisions, states would also be required to submit plans for transitioning to hand-marked paper ballots and provide proof that they are conducting manual post-election audits of 5 percent of ballots. The switch, reports the Times, would cost states hundreds of millions of dollars, and the affected grants tend to go to populous states with large urban areas, many of which have drawn President Donald Trump’s ire by voting against him, like California and New York.

“After denying disaster relief funding and stripping millions from counterterrorism programs, the Trump administration is once again putting New Yorkers’ lives at risk to forward their political agenda,” said New York Governor Kathy Hochul of the new requirements. “Unlike the President, my number one priority is New Yorkers’ safety, and I will fight to ensure our state has every resource available to keep us secure.”

The Times also notes that these “policies align closely with some of the goals pushed by right-wing activists that are rooted in false conspiracy theories about election machines and voting by noncitizens during the 2020 election.”