FEMA anti-terrorism grants weaponized to force election changes on states

The June 2026 FEMA FY2026 Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP) Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) makes more than $1 billion available for state and local anti-terrorism preparedness — equipment, training, planning. But the administration has inserted new election security conditions: states must intensify noncitizen voter purges and enforce voter ID laws to access these funds. This is homeland security money, not election administration funding. States that refuse risk losing hundreds of millions of dollars for actual safety programs.

As the Brennan Center has documented, Heritage Foundation's own voter fraud database — the same database the administration relies on — 'undermines claims of recent voter fraud' and shows noncitizen voting is 'virtually nonexistent.' A Brennan Center analysis of Project 2025 (the administration's roadmap) warns it would 'deploy the machinery of the Justice Department to investigate and prosecute election officials for doing their jobs — potentially criminalizing routine election administration.' The FEMA grant conditions are a backdoor way to force the same election restrictions that Project 2025 has long advocated, using homeland security funding as leverage rather than the Voting Rights Act of 1965's preclearance framework, which the Supreme Court gutted in Shelby County.

The alternative is straightforward: enforce the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as Congress originally intended, rely on the proven election administration tools that have kept fraud near zero, and keep FEMA focused on its actual mission — protecting communities from terrorism and natural disasters, not dictating election policy to states.