Trump administration officials took only minor steps Friday to follow through on the president’s demands for a crackdown on alleged voter fraud, while repeating his widely disputed claims that election systems are vulnerable to abuse.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, in a news conference the day after President Donald Trump delivered a primetime speech on election security, said the department would withhold federal funding from states that don’t “scrub” their voter rolls of ineligible voters and participate in the administration’s other election security initiatives.
Mullin also made vague threats to hold election officials accountable if they refused to cooperate. He suggested fines and prison time were possible and vowed that authorities would charge anyone attempting to vote illegally.