Columbus, Ohio
Capital and largest city of Ohio.
Columbus police will receive counterterrorism grants "with no political strings attached", City Attorney Zach Klein said, after Judge Amir Ali voided FEMA's election conditions on 28 September 2026 in a suit the city had joined.
Last refreshed: 1 October 2026
Timeline for Columbus, Ohio
Mentioned in: Judge Ali voids FEMA election conditions
US Midterms 2026Background
Columbus is the capital and largest city of Ohio. It had about 933,000 residents in July 2024 by Census Bureau estimate, more than twice the population of Cleveland, the state's next largest city.
The city was the only plaintiff from outside Tennessee and Texas in the 2026 challenge to FEMA's grant conditions, joining Nashville's metropolitan government and Harris, Travis, Dallas and El Paso counties in August. Under the conditions, Homeland Security Grant Program counterterrorism money depended on a state using DHS's SAVE citizenship checks, hand-auditing 5% of paper ballots and moving off voting machines, with 20% of the allocation at risk.
The city's side won on 28 September, when Judge Amir Ali set the conditions aside. Zach Klein, the City Attorney, said the ruling meant Columbus police would "see this funding with no political strings attached".