Grace Bannasch, a town clerk in Shutesbury, Massachusetts, didn’t expect to spend Oct. 17, 2020 – the first day of early voting in her state – in the emergency room.
That didn’t stop her from working. Before heading to the hospital, Bannasch checked to make sure her precinct was set up since she was the only town clerk the municipality had at the time. After the ER visit, she emptied out the ballot drop boxes for the night.
“I think lack of support is what burns me out…I was under a lot of pain. I was pretty scared. But I knew that I had a responsibility to make sure that people were able to vote,” she said.
This year, even with an assistant by her side, she said the job won’t be any easier. And she’s not alone. As local election workers face increased threats of disinformation, lack of election security and other issues, they’re expected to take on more responsibilities even amid staffing shortages, antiquated technology and tight budgets.
And dozens of election workers told USA TODAY they want Congress to do more to support them ahead of the 2024 general election.
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Though elections are mainly funded at the state and local level, Congress can appropriate money to states via the 2002 Help America Vote Act signed by former President George W. Bush. The act established a program that aims to improve voting systems and election administration in states through more funding. The states have the authority to trickle down the money to local election offices as they see fit.
While Congress passed a bill in March that allocated $55 million in Help America Vote Act grants to states, advocacy groups and election workers say it barely scratches the surface of what is needed.
Elections not cheap to run
The cost of running an election varies by municipality, said Gideon Cohn-Postar, legislative director at Issue One, a political reform group that advocates for Congress to bolster election security and integrity.
The usual estimate that local jurisdictions and states spend to administer a presidential election – excluding campaigns and nongovernmental spending associated with get out the vote efforts – is $2 billion to $3 billion nationwide, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The cost can come out to be thousands to millions of dollars per local election office, Cohn-Postar said.
Over the course of a decade, starting in 2003 Congress appropriated over $3 billion in funds for the Help America Vote Act grant program – of which a majority was disbursed in the first two years, according to a Congressional Research Service report.
Following cybersecurity threats in the 2016 election, Congress appropriated $380 million in election security grants to states in 2018 and that figure increased to $825 million in 2020 during the pandemic – of which $400 million came from the 2020 Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act passed by former President Donald Trump. The other $425 million of those funds were part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2020, signed into law by Trump in 2019.
But the funding has gone downhill since then.
In 2022 and 2023, Congress appropriated only $75 million in Help America Vote Act election security grants. State and local election officials, as well as bipartisan members of Issue One’s National Council on Election Integrity, wrote two letters to Congress in April of 2023 requesting $400 million in appropriations for the grant program in fiscal year 2024.
However, it ended up being $55 million after several rounds of negotiations. And the effects of less funding will likely show up at the polls on Election Day in November, experts warn, including fewer poll workers to get resources to polling places, long voting lines and less voter turnout due to little voter outreach efforts.
“Voter outreach can be really important for bringing in new voters, making sure that young voters understand the process, making sure that voters who do not speak English have access to resources,” said Danielle Lang, senior director of voting rights at the Campaign Legal Center, a non-partisan government watchdog organization.
A national poll commissioned by Issue One in April last year found that 69% of respondents across party lines think the federal government should be equally, if not more, responsible than local municipalities and states to fund elections.
More responsibilities, tight budgets ahead of 2024 election
The $55 million, election workers say, also isn’t enough to address the challenges they will face ahead of the 2024 general election. One such challenge is threats to election security, prompted by false allegations surrounding the 2020 election.
More than three in four local election officials feel that threats against them have increased in recent years and one in six have been threatened, according to a 2022 survey. The Brennan Center, a policy institute at New York University’s Law School, estimated that implementing physical security measures to protect election workers will cost about $300 million over the next five years.
The turnover rate of election officials is also significant. 21% of local election officials began serving after the 2020 election cycle or say they are very or somewhat unlikely to serve in the 2024 election, a 2023 survey found.
Amanda Gonzalez, a clerk in Jefferson County, Colorado, said that her county alone will need to hire between 700 and 900 temporary election workers this year.
Technology is another concern. Edward Golembiewski, chief deputy clerk at Washtenaw County, Michigan, said that only five of 27 jurisdictions in his county have full time dedicated IT support. No jurisdiction there each has a dedicated cybersecurity manager.
Bannasch said she requested a $12,900 budget this year for national and local elections in her area. But she will likely have to stretch it to accommodate costs such as the price of postage for thousands of mail-in-ballots, she said, which has skyrocketed since the pandemic. That leaves less money to upgrade election equipment, she said.
“We’re still using that that old Auto Mark from the early 2000s,” she said. “I think it is high time for the federal government to put up money to replace the aging fleet of accessible voting devices around the country.”
Other issues with the grant program
The amount being appropriated isn’t the only issue clouding election workers. With most states deciding how and when to disburse the money to local election offices, some either see the money late or don’t see it at all.
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold announced in February $3.5 million in support of counties for the primary and general. But before the announcement, Lori Mitchell, county clerk and recorder in Chaffee County, Colorado, said she’d been trying to get a hold of Help America Vote Act grants for a while for accessibility and security improvements.
“They’re in a tough spot. They knew that if they spent that money and then something that they really needed it for, an entire state – something came up – they wouldn’t have any more money,” said Mitchell.
The other issue, election workers said, is lack of predictability in funding. They pointed to how Congress didn’t appropriate new funds for Help America Vote Act grants in 2019 or 2021.
The uncertainty around the grants have led local election offices to turn to grants offered by nonprofits, such as the Center for Tech and Civic Life, to fund elections.
But they’ve also encountered a roadblock there. Over a dozen states have passed laws banning election offices from using private grants for election administration.
What lawmakers are hoping to do in 2024 election
President Joe Biden in his budget for fiscal year 2024 requested $5 billion in election assistance funding to be appropriated over 10 years, or roughly $500 million per year.
Though Rep. Joe Morelle, D-N.Y, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, introduced an amendment that included Biden’s request, it was defeated along party lines.
“I’m gonna continue to raise the issue. We’re going to continue to push for us. But frankly, I’m not all that optimistic,” he said, adding that Republicans appear to be the biggest roadblock in securing these grants.
Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Wis., who chairs the House Administration Committee, claimed many of the funds from the Help America Vote Act program go unused. He pointed to data from the Election Assistance Commission that shows states have spent approximately 56% of election security grants as of March 31, 2023.
Cohn-Postar argued that’s because many states set aside large portions of their remaining funds to use for security improvements, buying new machines, or hiring staff over the next few years, so it hasn’t been formally spent yet.
Even so, Steil added that, “While HAVA grants and federal funding are a resource for elections offices, much of the work and funding needed to run effective elections should be funded at the state-level.”
