The Dictatorship
Mullin threatens to penalize states that do not cooperate with DHS on election security
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said Friday that his department will penalize states that do not cooperate with the federal government to “secure our elections” ahead of November’s midterm elections.
Announcing in a news conference what he called a new Department of Homeland Security program to safeguard U.S. elections, Mullin said states that refuse to participate may be deprived of federal funds and resources to run their elections. State election officials may also be personally held accountable by fines, penalties and potential prison time, he warned.
“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 work or to run federal elections, they’re going to have to implement security issues,” he said.
Mullin said that states will have to “look at who voted in their states” and that if their election officials do not adhere to federal directions on security measures, “then those individuals can also be held accountable by fines, by penalties and even, depending on how far it goes, prison time.”
If states do not hand over voter roles to federal officials, Mullin said, the government will scour public records of voters.
“You must be a U.S. citizen, and you must be eligible to vote before and after the election,” he said. “We will scrub all election records,” looking for noncitizen voters and others ineligible to vote, including votes linked to deceased people.
“We will go through those records one by one, and we will pursue everybody,” he said.
He threatened to prosecute noncitizens for voting, which is illegal and a highly rare occurrence. An analysis by the Bipartisan Policy Center of Elections between 1999 and 2023 found only 77 instances of noncitizen votingeach of which was investigated by the authorities.
“If you’re illegal and attempted to vote, or you tried to vote illegally for someone else, we will find you, and we will charge you,” Mullin warned.
According to Mullin, DHS found hundreds of thousands of noncitizens who are registered to vote in California, New Jersey, Nevada and Pennsylvania, without presenting a breakdown of the data or explaining the department’s investigative process.
Mullin’s remarks follow President Donald Trump’s primetime speech on Thursday night, during which he again promoted conspiracy theories about his 2020 election loss and pushed for more voting restrictions.
DHS’ involvement in the campaign is a preview of what is shaping up to be a whole-of-government approach that could instill uncertainty in America’s election security ahead of the November midterms and impose stricter laws that civil rights advocates say will burden voters.
In his Thursday night speech, Trump repeated falsehoods about the 2020 election, saying it had been “rigged and stolen.” He accused China of buying and stealing tens of millions of voter data files and said Venezuela was capable of manipulating elections.
Declassified intelligence released by the White House that intended to prove his claims instead undermined it. Afterward, several Trump officials — including current and former intelligence and administration officials — told MS NOW that no U.S. intelligence exists showing that any foreign country influenced the outcome of the 2020 election
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Julia Jester and Brian Bennett contributed reporting.
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.