Presidential battleground states consider more election funding

COLUMBIA, S.C. —  Ahead of the 2024 presidential election, officials in several battleground states have proposed boosting funding to add staff, enhance security and expand training within election offices that are facing heavier workloads and heightened public scrutiny.

The proposals for extra funding come as many election offices grapple with a wave of retirements and a flood of public records requests, stemming partly from distrust of elections seeded by former President Trump’s falsehoods after his 2020 defeat.

In South Carolina, host of one of the earliest presidential primaries, election directors in almost half the state’s counties have resigned in the last two years, said Howard Knapp, executive director of the state Election Commission.

The unprecedented turnover has created an “enormous knowledge and competency gap,” prompting a request for millions of additional state dollars to boost staffing and training, Knapp said. He warned that without the funds, the gap will grow and elections will be “severely impacted.”

“I can’t control county directors leaving,” he said, adding: “What I can control is this agency’s ability to deliver quality training to the counties so that it doesn’t matter who is in the chair — they will have an established training program that they can take themselves and they can impart.”

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Elections officials, governors and lawmakers in states that hold early primaries or play other pivotal roles in the presidential election, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Wisconsin, also have proposed funding increases. In many of those states, lawmakers are still working on the final budget.

The timing is crucial. Most states’ annual budgets take effect in July, meaning they must cover presidential primaries that occur in the first half of 2024. And once funding is approved, election officials will need time to hire and train employees and buy new security and voting equipment.

Georgia, where a grand jury has been investigating whether Trump and his allies illegally meddled in the 2020 election, is one of about a dozen states where lawmakers already have passed a 2024 budget. The Republican-led General Assembly added $427,010 to hire two investigators, one administrative assistant and an executive director for the State Election Board.

One state still weighing more election spending is Arizona, which became a focal point for electionchallenges and conspiracy theories after Trump narrowly lost there in 2020.

Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat who previously served as Arizona’s secretary of state, has proposed an $11-million increase for a new election task force. The panel, which held its first meeting earlier this month, is expected to release recommendations by November on ways to standardize election practices, update equipment and security guidelines, and provide training to local workers.

Arizona’s Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes is pushing for an additional $3.1 million for election-related spending, in part to add six employees to help train and certify election workers and a new chief information security officer to confront vulnerabilities in election cybersystems.

There was no credible evidence of widespread fraud or manipulation of voting equipment in 2020. Yet distrust about elections persists among Republicans, fueled by Trump allies who have been traveling the country highlighting theoretical vulnerabilities.

In the last three years, almost every election office across the country has seen an increase in the number of public records requests, said Tammy Patrick, chief executive officer for programs at the National Assn. of Election Officials.

South Carolina experienced a 500% increase in election-related public records requests, driven largely by election doubters who submitted model language drafted by out-of-state conspiracy groups, Knapp said.

The state election commission is seeking $3.2million to help establish a training division and enhance technical support. Knapp also wants about $1.2million to hire seven staff members, including a public information officer to respond to questions from the media, voters and interest groups.

Voting advocates say training is especially important in hostile environments where bad-faith actors may twist instances of irregularities to undermine election integrity.

Cynthia Holland, who oversees elections for Aiken County, S.C., said the funded training would be a “blessing.” She estimated her four-person office had spent more than 100 hours since November 2020 responding to records requests.

“It’s enough time that it puts us behind on our work that we’re supposed to be hired to do,” she said.

Officials in Nevada, Oregon and Wisconsin also have proposed funding increases to hire additional staff to handle public requests for election information.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, has proposed spending $1.9million in the next two fiscal years to hire 10 staffers for a new Office of Election Transparency and Compliance to handle requests and complaints. Until recently, the Wisconsin Election Commission had only one attorney to process complaints and one public information officer.

“This structure has proved inadequate to address the hundreds of thousands of questions and concerns, along with hundreds of records requests and complaints,” the Election Commission wrote in its budget request.

Separate budget plans by North Carolina’s Democratic governor and GOP-led House both include money to hire more regional staff to help county election boards with technology, security and other needs.

Michigan’s Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is seeking to boost the secretary of state’s overall budget by nearly $10million, including a $3-million increase for branch offices and $1.2million to expand staffing for seven mobile offices. But the increase would be substantially less than the $100million a year that Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson estimates is needed to “address historic disinvestment in Michigan elections.”

About three-fourths of local election officials across the U.S. say their budgets need to grow in the next several years, according to a recent Brennan Center for Justice survey of 852 officials. The nonpartisan policy institute highlighted the need for more spending to hire poll workers and office staff, replace voting equipment and improve physical security and cybersecurity.

“Things are strained — there’s no question about it. The challenges in the elections field keep mounting,” said Lawrence Norden, director of the Brennan Center’s elections and government program. “There’s a lot of concern in the elections community about what can be done in the remaining 18 months to make sure that our elections are as strong and secure as possible.”