Hired security personnel wait for voters outside the Leon County Supervisor of Elections office on November 3, 2020 in Tallahassee, Florida. (Photo by Mark Wallheiser/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The federal government has been trying to boost election security for years through a popular grant program, but wildly fluctuating funding levels have made it difficult for state officials to plan their budgets and their projects.
Growing misinformation and disinformation about elections, often fueled by conspiracy theories as well as threats against election workers, make the subsidies particularly important, according to election officials.
But Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are seeking to eliminate funding for election security grants — known as the Help America Vote Act or HAVA grants — in this year’s appropriations process, a move they also tried unsuccessfully last year.
“We continue to needlessly risk the integrity of our elections and American democracy,” Georgia Democratic Rep. Sanford Bishop said Thursday during a committee debate on the funding bill.
Bishop, a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, said he was “concerned about the outdated and insecure voting systems across the country, which pose a very, very serious threat to our national security and to our democratic system.”
“It is irresponsible to ignore the wake-up call,” Bishop added. “Our nation’s election systems are currently and continuously under attack by foreign actors who threaten our democratic values.”
The bill was approved by the Republican Party-led House Appropriations Committee without any money included for the grants.
Gideon Cohn-Postar, legislative director of Issue One & Issue One Action, said during an interview with States Newsroom that while the grants have historically been bipartisan, several factors have influenced support for the program in recent years.
“It remains something that many Republicans in both the House of Representatives and the Senate support,” Cohn-Postar said. “But it also, I think, got caught up in some of the misinformation about elections that started to spread in 2020.”
Former President Donald Trump, now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, continues to falsely claim that the 2020 election was stolen.
Issue One writes on its website that the organization aims to “unite Republicans, Democrats and independents in the movement to fix our broken political system and build an inclusive democracy that works for everyone.”
Subsidy funding is decreasing
Congress approved $55 million in election security grants during the last appropriations process, which concluded this spring. That action came after the Republican-controlled House, which proposed zero dollars, conferenced with the Democratic-controlled Senate, which proposed $75 million in funding.
That final funding level was a decrease from the $75 million Congress approved in both the 2023 and 2022 budgets.
Congress did not approve any funding for election grants in the annual appropriations bill in fiscal year 2021. However, that followed lawmakers’ allocation of $425 million in last year’s bill, as well as another $400 million in one of the COVID-19 emergency expenditures. accounts.
Cohn-Postar said several states have tried to make their HAVA grants last longer than a year by spending less than they receive or by saving the money for larger projects.
Louisiana, for example, has not spent any of its election security grants since 2018, in preparation for an overhaul of its election system. New Hampshire passed a state law that pools the grant money into an endowment and then spends only a portion of it each year.
But that “careful” budgeting and uncertainty about how much subsidies Congress might provide in the coming year have led federal lawmakers to look skeptically at states’ use of the subsidies, Cohn-Postar said.
“The biggest thing we’ve encountered … is that about half of the states have only spent about half of their HAVA grants,” Cohn-Postar said. “And that comes up in every conversation that Congress has about these subsidies. They say, “Hey, why should we appropriate more when you haven’t spent anything?”
Congress, he said, sometimes uses states’ “careful, thoughtful budgeting as an excuse for not giving them money.”
Republicans in Congress also want to reduce federal spending overall and have made cuts to many of the dozens of annual spending bills, including the Financial Services Act, which includes the HAVA grants.
‘Incredibly important’ in Maine
Secretary of State of Maine Shenna Bellows said during an interview that the grants have been “incredibly important, especially in the absence of sustained election funding from the federal government.”
“We have seen the rapid evolution of cybersecurity threats and threats against election infrastructure in recent years,” Bellows said. “As threats evolve, so must our preparedness. The election security grants are fundamental to our ability to invest in improvements to our central voter registration system and cybersecurity protections for that system.”
Congress’s inability or unwillingness to create a predictable, stable funding program that would allow states to run federal elections is “unfortunate,” she said.
“We are very proud that Maine has always enjoyed safe, free and secure elections,” Bellows said. “But make no mistake: the lack of sustainable, ongoing federal funding is a potential vulnerability going forward.”
Washington State Elections Director Stuart Holmes said in an interview that he plans his annual budget so that he does not receive HAVA election security grants, and he is pleasantly surprised if Congress does provide the funding.
“Throughout my entire career, there have only been two rounds of HAVA that have represented a significant investment in the election,” Holmes said. “So it’s a big surprise to get an extra million dollars at the beginning of the year. But it does make it virtually impossible to prepare and plan something if you have to spend it.”
The grants do not expire at the end of the budget year and the federal government does not claw back unspent funding, allowing states to take different approaches to how they use the money.
Holmes said during his interview with States Newsroom that the funding approved in fiscal year 2020 allowed the state to create “an entire team of cybersecurity professionals who would be dedicated to protecting our infrastructure.”
“In Washington state we have a centralized voter registration and election management system, and never before have we had dedicated election professionals monitoring the logs, preparing our system, testing our system and working with other professionals to conduct testing,” Holmes said . “So we are in a better position than ever before.”
Still, he said, “local election officials would certainly look to a stable source of funding from the federal government when it comes to federal elections.”
New Hampshire Election Fund
New Hampshire Secretary of State David M. Scanlan said that when Congress passed the HAVA program in 2002, it told states that the funding was primarily intended to build a statewide voter registration database ensure that every polling station has accessible voting equipment, provide polling stations with training and establish voter education programs.
The New Hampshire Legislature at the time told the Secretary of State to use Congress’ initial appropriation to meet the requirements, but then establish an election fund with the remaining money.
Originally, the Secretary of State could use one-twentieth of the total funding in the account for the annual costs of maintaining federal mandates, but that is currently one-twelfth of the total amount in the fund.
“New Hampshire has done a good job with the money we have, but there is no doubt that the funds have helped us implement security measures for our electronic systems,” Scanlan said.
The state, he said, has used its federal election security grants to hire vendors that specialize in keeping electronic systems secure.
When New Hampshire created a new voter registration database, the state used the funding to ensure that none of the software contained anything nefarious.
“We’ve really made sure that the systems we build are clean and that there isn’t anything malicious lurking around,” Scanlan said. “We’ve taken some really good steps that really give me confidence that our systems are in good shape.”
Advocating for ‘consistent, reliable federal funding’
JP Martin, deputy director of communications for the Arizona secretary of state, declined States Newsroom’s request for an interview with the secretary of state, offering only to provide written answers to questions about HAVA election security grants.
Martin wrote in an email that “fluctuating levels of federal funding have had a significant impact on our strategic planning and budgeting.”
“The uncertainty about future allocations forces us to be cautious with spending and focus on priorities such as improving physical security measures for voting equipment,” Martin wrote. “For example, securing equipment in cages – which now requires a tailgate truck due to increased weight – demonstrates the challenges of dealing with technological and budgetary constraints under limited HAVA funding.”
If Congress refuses to provide election security grants in the future, “Arizona’s election infrastructure could be significantly strained,” he wrote.
“Currently the state is on a hiring freeze and our focus remains on supporting counties, especially with recent changes such as primary election dates and legislation expanding voting to weekends,” Martin wrote. “We are prioritizing increased cybersecurity training and advocating for consistent, reliable federal funding to ensure a smooth election, emphasizing the need for sustained financial support from Congress.”
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Postal states struggle with unreliable federal funding to ensure elections are secure, first appeared on Wisconsin Examiner.
