The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will require states to follow a list of election security measures before receiving funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) $1 billion grant program.
For states to be rewarded money from FEMA’s Homeland Security Grant Program, each must take a series of five “common-sense steps” to protect the integrity of American elections, according to a DHS press release on July 10.
“Election security is national security and protecting the Nation’s critical infrastructure is a top priority,” DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said on Friday.
All grant recipients—U.S. states, Tribal Nations, territorial, and local governments—will be required to follow a five-rule outline laid out by the Trump administration’s DHS on Friday.
“These new requirements for homeland security grant recipients will preserve election integrity and ensure that Americans can trust the results,” Mullin said.
The first step requires states to submit a plan on how they will pivot from using what DHS called “unsecure electronic voting systems that use bar codes and QR codes” to equipment that accepts hand-marked paper ballots.
The second requirement makes states audit at least 5 percent of randomly selected ballots cast in a federal election, such as the presidential race. Federal officials want this process to prove that what’s written on paper ballots matches what was entered in the machine.
“Under President [Donald] Trump’s leadership, we are taking decisive action to protect election systems from threats like foreign interference, insider threats, and cyberattacks,” Mullin said.
Third, states confirm that the number of people who voted in the federal election matched the number of ballots cast.
The fourth rule will make states verify the citizenship status of everyone listed in the state voter registration database by using the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system.
The last rule makes all states verify that people working at polling places are U.S. citizens.
“The President, and head of the Executive Branch, reserves the right to remove individuals that may not be totally aligned with the important task of securing America’s elections and ensuring every legal vote is counted,” a White House official wrote in a statement to The Epoch Times on July 10.
The Election Assistance Commission is an independent, bipartisan commission that’s supposed to protect election equipment, provide support for election officials, and “make elections safe, secure, accurate, and accessible,” according to the agency’s website.
