Nashville v. DHS 

In June, the Department of Homeland Security issued a Notice of Funding Opportunity for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s roughly $1 billion Homeland Security Grant Program, which helps state and local governments prevent and respond to terrorism threats. The Notice conditions the full receipt of future anti-terrorism funds on states and counties adopting a series of burdensome changes to their election procedures. Over the last two years, courts have largely blocked the administration’s repeated attempts to take control of elections because states and Congress — not the executive branch — have the power to make election rules. Now, DHS is holding public safety hostage in order to coerce states into adopting some of the very policies that the administration has already tried and failed to impose. 

According to DHS, grant recipients who do not comply with five new election conditions will be forced to forfeit 20 percent of their anti-terrorism grant funding.  First, they must submit a plan for transitioning from electronic voting systems that use bar codes or QR codes to count votes to equipment that accepts hand-marked, paper ballots. Second, they must demonstrate proof of compliance with a post-election, 5 percent manual audit. Third, they must ensure that each election jurisdiction reconciles the number of voters who voted in each federal election to the number of ballots cast. Fourth, they must use the federal SAVE system to verify the citizenship of the entire state’s voter registration database and remove non-U.S. citizens from the database within 120 days of accepting the grant award. And fifth, they must use the SAVE system to verify the citizenship of election workers, election administrators, and vendors. 

Each of these conditions creates impracticable burdens and timelines that will interfere with election administration and impede voter access. For example, for many counties, transitioning to an exclusively hand-marked paper ballot system would cost millions of dollars and require additional equipment, increased staffing, and several months to implement the changes. The manual audit requirement would require states and localities to dramatically expand and rework their existing — and already effective — auditing systems, creating massive burdens and potential post-election delays. And the SAVE system is notoriously so inaccurate that a federal court recently prohibited the administration from using it for voter citizenship screening. 

On August 17, 2026, the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee, Harris County, Texas, the City of Columbus, Ohio, and El Paso County, Texas filed a federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to challenge the new election conditions. On September 1, 2026, Plaintiffs filed an amended complaint adding Travis County, Texas, and Dallas County, Texas to the lawsuit. The Brennan Center for Justice, Jacobson Lawyers Group, Protect Democracy, and Public Rights Project are serving as co-counsel in the case. The Brennan Center does not represent El Paso County, Travis County, or Dallas County.