DHS Sec. Threatens to Defund States That Don’t “Scrub” Voter Rolls

The Trump administration has promised to stonewall federal grants unless states “scrub” their voter rolls.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin openly threatened to defund state governments that failed to “secure” future election cycles, during a press conference in Washington Friday morning.

The pledge came hours after Donald Trump delivered a national address that not only included numerous factual inaccuracies and vast exaggerations about how he lost to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, but also weaponized those conspiracies in an attempt to undermine American trust in future elections.

“Working with [Commerce] Secretary [Howard] Lutnick, we are going to make our security enhancements mandatory. Meaning that if these states want a grant, and they want to be reimbursed to run federal elections, they are going to have to implement security issues,” Mullin said. “Just security issues. We’re not trying to get into anything else, but we’re saying that the machines have to be secured and that your voter registration lists need to be scrubbed.

“We need to make sure that individuals legally able to vote are voting.”
Markwayne Mullin says he’s making “mandatory” changes to elections, including requiring states to “scrub” their voter rolls pic.twitter.com/p5aRegbgaI
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 17, 2026
The Homeland Security chief further threatened that state officials who refuse to comply with Washington’s demands could be jailed for their disobedience.

“If the states choose not to participate with the state program, and they choose not to participate in securing the elections, we will make sure that we make those states a priority to look at who voted in their states, and hold them—the election officials—accountable,” Mullin said. “If the election officials, once we gave them the information they need to secure their elections, and they chose not to, then those individuals can also be held accountable by fines, by penalties, and even—depending on how far it goes—prison time.”

Mullin confidently announced the plot while standing in front of several American flags, despite the fact that the entire scheme is most likely illegal and that he is acting far outside the limitations of his office and even the executive branch. Homeland Security lacks the necessary authority to either withhold federal grants or force states to purge voter rolls. Only Congress has the power to do that.

Beyond that, voter fraud is a statistical nonissue in American elections. For instance, a 2024 statewide audit out of Georgia—the epicenter of one of Trump’s baseless 2020 theories—revealed that 20 noncitizens out of 8.2 million residents existed on the state’s voter roll, just 0.00024 percent of the state’s voting population. Out of those 20, only nine participated in elections, many years ago, before ID was required as a part of the voter verification process. The other 11 individuals were registered but never actually voted, according to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. ...