Gov. Josh Shapiro has joined more than two dozen leaders of other states in another lawsuit against the administration of President Donald Trump, this time accusing the federal government of a "campaign of coercion" that threatens homeland security grant money for states that don't change their election laws.
Filed Thursday in a Rhode Island federal court, the lawsuit alleges that the administration is "using hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds as a cudgel [to] impose the current Administration's preferred policies" on voting rules — even though states themselves are charged with devising election procedures.
At stake is a chunk of money allocated each year through the State Homeland Security Program grants. States use the funds for a variety of purposes, including election security: Pennsylvania, for one, has used the money to provide emergency training to police and other first responders, and for equipment and supplies including bomb-sniffing dogs.
But as WESA first reported last week, applications for this year's grant warned that states could lose up to 20% of their grant money unless they undertook a number of election changes, which include efforts to manually audit 5% of ballots cast — the state currently requires each county to audit 2% of ballots — and run voter rolls through a federal database whose flaws have attracted judicial scrutiny.
Pennsylvania says that a 20% cut could cost the state $6 million in funding for public-safety programs.
In a statement, Shapiro said the administration was "holding critical funding for homeland security and disaster response hostage in their latest attempt to take over our elections and perpetuate baseless conspiracy theories." The tactic, he added, "would be dangerous under any circumstance, but doing this in an attempt to undermine states' authority over elections is reckless and unconstitutional."
The suit names the Department of Homeland Security and its secretary, Markwayne Mullin, as well as the Federal Emergency Management Agency and its top administrator, Robert Fenton.
In a statement, a FEMA spokesperson said the suit was "nothing new. We fully expected these left-wing politicians to oppose common-sense measures designed to protect election security and safeguard the integrity of American democracy."
"Election security is national security, and protecting our critical infrastructure remains a top priority for the Trump Administration," the statement continued. "Concerns over voting processes, data security, and registration practices have made it clear that action is required."
Even before Trump's second term, the grant program required state officials to set aside some money for election security. But state officials say the federal government previously gave deference to states about how to meet that requirement, rather than dictating specific policy requirements.
Trump has long argued that his loss to former President Joe Biden stemmed from fraud, though courts across the country have repeatedly rejected his attempts to overturn the result. New Jersey recently reported that a computer error in its motor-voter system wrongly registered 6,000 people who were ineligible to vote between 2023 and 2024; about 400 of them voted. But such numbers represent a miniscule portion of ballots cast in presidential contests.
The Trump administration similarly sought to tie homeland security grant funds to election changes in 2025. That move, too, prompted legal action from a number of states and was rejected in court — though state officials told WESA last week that they still hadn't received the 2025 allocation.
Pennsylvania joined the suit under Shapiro's name in his capacity as governor: As has happened with other litigation against the Trump Administration, Attorney General Dave Sunday, a Republican, did not join the litigation. State law allows the governor's own legal office to undertake lawsuits in such cases.
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