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More than two dozen states have filed a joint lawsuit seeking to prevent the Trump administration from limiting disaster relief funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) if they do not comply with the president’s demands on election systems changes.

Twenty-five states plus Washington, D.C. filed the suit in federal court in Rhode Island. The suit argues that rules imposed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), conditioning potential FEMA funds on burdensome election reforms, violate the Administrative Procedure Act, as well as spending rules laid out in the Constitution.

The administration is claiming that the changes are needed to prevent election fraud and address supposed vulnerabilities in election systems, citing President Donald Trump’s baseless conspiracy theories regarding his loss in the 2020 presidential election to former President Joe Biden.

Among other changes, DHS has told states they must:

Use handmarked paper ballots instead of voting machines;

Use a federal database (one that has a high error rate) to search for noncitizens within voter rolls;

And hand over personal information of voters to the federal government.

A spokesperson for FEMA claimed that the move is legal, asserting that........

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