Trump threatens state funding over paper ballots and election audits

The Trump administration is preparing to withhold tens of millions of dollars in homeland security money from states that do not switch to hand-marked paper ballots, add citizenship checks and submit to new audit rules.

The money at stake comes from homeland-security grant programs that states and local governments use for counterterrorism, emergency preparedness, infrastructure protection, disaster readiness and election security. States that refuse could lose up to 20% of certain grants.

The push follows Donald Trump’s March 2025 executive order on elections, parts of which have already been blocked or paused by courts. A federal court permanently blocked one provision that would have forced the Election Assistance Commission to require a passport or other citizenship document for use of the federal voter registration form. Separately, the Federal Register published a Department of Homeland Security rule on April 3, 2026, titled Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections. The rule lays out DHS procedures to compile and transmit to each state’s chief election official a list of individuals confirmed to be U.S. citizens.

Hand-marked paper ballots would require some states to phase out electronic voting systems, including machines that use bar codes. Citizenship verification would mean running voter rolls through a DHS database and sorting through records tied to the Social Security Administration and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Manual audits would add labor, time and administrative expense after every election.

The first jurisdictions most exposed are the states that still rely on the systems Washington wants to eliminate and that have not already adopted proof-of-citizenship rules for registration. The Brennan Center counts five states with a proof-of-citizenship requirement for all people registering or updating registration in the 2026 midterms: Arizona, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming. Other states, especially those using electronic systems and rejecting federal verification demands, are also exposed if the administration follows through on grant cuts.

The fight is unfolding alongside Congress’s SAVE Act, introduced January 3, 2025, which would require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections.