CHICAGO -- The Election Infrastructure Initiative (EII) has released a statement in response to the FY23 omnibus budget from Congress that contained no increase in funding for state and local election departments, maintaining funding at last year’s level of $75 million. By comparison, it cost the City of Los Angeles alone $53 million to administer their portion of the 2021 California gubernatorial recall election.

“After a year in which local election officials faced massive challenges from higher labor costs to significant cost increases for their most basic supplies like postage and ballot paper, I am bewildered that Congress is choosing to continue to fall so short of the need with a meager $75 million in funding for the entire country,” said Tiana Epps-Johnson, executive director for the Center for Tech and Civic Life. “This budget was a chance to set local election officials up for long-term success, and it is frustrating that Congress could not prioritize safe and secure elections. I am proud of the bipartisan coalition of state and local election officials that brought their stories to lawmakers calling for increased funding. We will be back.”

The complex supply chain and procurement process for state and local election departments mean that the decision now from Congress not to increase funding will have a ripple effect for years because of the long lead time it takes to move equipment into local election departments. 

According to a recent study from MIT, government spending on election services ranks near the bottom of spending for all public services, about the same as what local governments spend on parking facilities.

The Department of Homeland Security in 2017 officially designated election infrastructure as “part of the existing Government Facilities critical infrastructure sector.” DHS noted that election infrastructure “is vital to our national interests, and cyberattacks on this country are becoming more sophisticated, and bad cyber actors – ranging from nation-states, cybercriminals and hacktivists – are becoming more sophisticated and dangerous.”

The EII campaign included strong bipartisan support from local election officials around the country:

• Karan Pujji – Creve Coeur GOP Township leader “Proper election administration requires adequate funding,” November 28, 2022, The Webster-Kirkwood Times  

• Bonnie Jung – Mayor of Louisville, KY “Election Infrastructure,” December 7, 2022, Courier-Journal  

• Ken Strachan - Mayor of North Carrollton, MS “Congress must fund election infrastructure,” December 7, 2022, The Winona Times and Carroll County Conservative  

• Delegate Daniel Linville – Chair of the WV House Technology Committee “Improving election infrastructure and cybersecurity for the long-haul (Opinion),” November 25, 2022, The Charleston Gazette-Mail  

• Robyn Tannehill – Mayor of Oxford, MS “Preserving our democracy through well-supported elections,” December 6, 2022, The Daily Journal

The EII campaign – led by the Center for Tech and Civic Life and Institute for Responsive Government – spent nearly two years making the case to Congress that state and local election departments needed regular public funding to ensure safe, secure and fair elections. That work included: 

• A study from EII estimating the need at $53 billion over 10 years. 

• A 2022 midterm election report showing that significant funding gaps still exist. 

• A  series of full-page newspaper ads calling on the Senate to boost funding for state and local election departments. View the ads here.

• Polling: According to a recent national survey showing, 69 percent of likely voters nationally support increased investment in election infrastructure.

• Two separate panel discussions led by Leader Steny Hoyer and Rep. Mike Quigley about the need for funding

• A letter from a bipartisan group of state and local officials from around the country calling on Congress to allocate $20 billion in funding to local and state election administrators for secure election infrastructure over the next 10 years.

The Election Infrastructure Initiative is a project of the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) and the Institute for Responsive Government (IRG).
 
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