EL PASO, Texas (KFOX14\/CBS4) \u2014 A federal judge has sided with El Paso County and other local governments in a lawsuit challenging new election-related conditions tied to federal anti-terrorism grants.<\/p>\n
El Paso County said that on Monday the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted summary judgment to six counties and cities, ruling that the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency acted illegally by withholding tens of millions of dollars in anti-terrorism funding unless jurisdictions agreed to new election requirements.<\/p>\n
Those conditions included using hand-marked paper ballots instead of electronic voting systems; manually auditing at least 5 percent of ballots, which the county said would add high new costs and in some cases conflict with state law; and using the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system to verify the citizenship of every registered voter and election worker.<\/p>\n
The county said the decision means local first responders will continue to have access to the funds and that election processes will not have to be overhauled just weeks before the midterms. El Paso County also said the Trump administration\u2019s threat to withhold the money was an attempt to influence state-run elections.<\/p>\n
RELATED: El Paso County joins lawsuit over election rules tied to grant funding<\/a><\/p>\n “El Paso County has run elections responsibly for decades,” said El Paso County Attorney Christina Sanchez. “Conditioning our counterterrorism funding on an unproven citizenship verification system was reckless, and today\u2019s ruling stops this gross abuse of power in its tracks.”<\/p>\n Lauren Miller Karalunes, senior counsel in the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice and part of the team representing the plaintiffs, said, “This ruling confirms what we’ve said all along: conditioning public safety funding on unrelated election policy demands is unlawful. States and Congress \u2014 not the executive branch \u2014 make the rules for elections. Thanks to today\u2019s decision, localities will continue to receive their federal public safety funding in full and use it to protect their communities without federal pressure to change the way they run elections.”<\/p>\n El Paso County, Harris County, the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee, and the City of Columbus, Ohio, filed the lawsuit Aug. 17 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.<\/p>\n Attached is the Order:<\/p>\n Attached is the Memorandum Opinion:<\/p>\n Memorandum OpinionPDF previewPreview PDF<\/p>\n