Election administration funding: paying for the machinery of voting

In plain words

Election administration funding is the money that pays for running elections: staff, poll workers, voting equipment, ballots, mail, polling places, cybersecurity, and audits. In the United States most of this money comes from local governments, and federal grants have arrived in irregular bursts, which a 2026 Election Assistance Commission report says has made it hard for officials to replace equipment on schedule.

Picture a county office that runs every election in its area. It has to buy machines that last about ten years, hire hundreds of temporary workers for a few days, print ballots in several versions, and defend computers against attacks. Its budget is set by a county board that also funds roads, jails, and parks. Some years, Washington sends a large check. Many years, it sends little or nothing. Planning a ten-year equipment cycle on that kind of money is hard.

The problem, stated precisely

The problem has three parts:

1. Level. Whether election offices have enough money to run elections accurately, securely, and accessibly.
2. Predictability. Whether money arrives on a schedule that matches the life cycle of equipment and staffing needs.
3. Source and independence. Who pays, and whether the source of money creates real or perceived influence over how elections are run.

This page does not cover campaign finance, which is about money spent to win elections; see money in politics. It touches on threats to staff only as a cost; the harm itself is on voter intimidation.

Defined terms

• Election jurisdiction. The unit that administers elections, usually a county or municipality. The EAC’s 2024 survey covered 6,461 jurisdictions across 56 states, territories, and the District of Columbia.⁠¹
• HAVA. The Help America Vote Act of 2002, the main federal law authorizing grants to states for election administration.⁠²
• Requirements payments. HAVA grants for meeting the act’s requirements; the statute authorized $3 billion across fiscal years 2003 to 2005.⁠²
• Election security grants. HAVA general improvements funds appropriated since 2018, with a state match requirement.⁠^2,3
• VVSG 2.0. The Voluntary Voting System Guidelines version 2.0, federal standards for certifying voting systems, adopted by the EAC in February 2021.⁠⁴

Evidence

Who pays

The Congressional Research Service describes states and localities as having “primary responsibility for administering elections” and notes that local officials are often responsible for most election-related spending.⁠² There is no single national ledger of election spending, so a precise national total is not available from the sources reviewed here, and this page does not estimate one.

What it takes to run one federal election

The EAC’s 2024 survey gives a sense of scale. States reported 177,708 precincts and 95,815 physical polling places, with 87,736 polling places operating on Election Day 2024.⁠¹ More than 770,000 people served as poll workers, the majority at least 61 years old, and 15.5 percent were first-time workers.⁠¹ States transmitted 66,867,671 mail ballots.⁠¹ Each of these is a cost: rent, wages, training, printing, and postage.

Federal money arrives in bursts

The CRS lists federal election security appropriations of $380 million in fiscal 2018, $425 million in 2020, $75 million in 2022, $75 million in 2023, and $55 million in 2024, plus $400 million in CARES Act funding in 2020 that had to be spent on pandemic-related election costs by December 31, 2020, with a 20 percent match.⁠² The EAC lists $15 million for fiscal 2025 and $45 million for fiscal 2026, each requiring a 20 percent state match.⁠³ CRS describes general funding as coming “more intermittently” than disability access grants, which Congress has funded more regularly.⁠²

Equipment is aging

The EAC’s 2026 report on deploying VVSG 2.0 systems, developed with contributions from the Bipartisan Policy Center, states that “More than five years later, two systems have been certified to VVSG 2.0”.⁠⁴ It projects that by the 2028 presidential election, the average age of voting equipment, if not replaced, will be about 9.3 years, that jurisdictions have historically replaced equipment at about 9.7 years of service, and that some jurisdictions use equipment “nearly 30 years old”.⁠⁴ It estimates that replacing all voting equipment with VVSG 2.0 systems in 2028 would cost roughly $2.71 billion, a figure that excludes other election technology and operating costs.⁠⁴ It concludes that “irregular and insufficient federal funding has made it difficult for state and local officials to plan replacements in sync with equipment life cycles”.⁠⁴

Local officials report unmet needs

In the Brennan Center’s spring 2024 survey of 928 local election officials, 85 percent said their annual budget needs to grow in the next five years to meet administration and security needs, 43 percent were concerned about recruiting enough poll workers, and among those who had a budget request denied, 41 percent would have used the money for personnel and wages.⁠⁵ These are officials’ own assessments; officials asking for more money is expected, and the survey does not test whether the requests were justified.

Private money in 2020, and the response

In 2020, pandemic costs, including a surge in mail ballots, larger polling sites, and cleaning supplies, were partly covered by philanthropic grants. NCSL reports that the Center for Tech and Civic Life, funded by donations from Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, gave grants to local election offices ranging from $5,000 to $19 million.⁠⁶ After that election, states moved to restrict private funding: NCSL counts 29 states that prohibit, limit, or regulate private or philanthropic funding of elections, with 11 enacting laws in 2021, 13 in 2022, and 3 in 2023, Wisconsin voters approving a constitutional ban in 2024, and Wyoming enacting a ban in 2025.⁠⁶

Causes and competing explanations

• Local responsibility, local budgets. Elections compete with every other county service. In years without a major election, the office is easy to cut.
• Crisis-driven federal action. HAVA followed the 2000 election; security grants followed concerns about foreign interference; CARES funding followed the pandemic.⁠^2,4 Congress has tended to fund elections after a visible failure rather than on a schedule.
• Federalism. CRS notes some members of Congress may hesitate to provide ongoing funding “due to federalism-based considerations,” and some state and local officials may be wary of ongoing federal involvement.⁠² Federal money can come with federal conditions.
• Invisible success. A well-run election is noticed by nobody, which weakens the political case for spending on it until something goes wrong.
• Rising demands. Ninety-two percent of local officials in the 2024 Brennan survey reported taking steps since 2020 to improve security, including cybersecurity and physical security, each of which carries ongoing costs.⁠⁵

Who is harmed

Voters in under-resourced jurisdictions bear the most direct harm when funding falls short: longer lines, fewer polling places, and less help (see ballot access). Voters with disabilities depend on accessible equipment that must be bought and maintained (see disability access). Voters needing materials in other languages depend on translation budgets (see language access). Election staff carry the burden as workload. And every voter has an interest in equipment that is secure and supported by its manufacturer, which aging systems may not be.⁠⁴

What has been tried elsewhere

One-time federal infusions. HAVA’s requirements payments after 2000 and the 2018 and 2020 security grants funded upgrades; HAVA itself authorized $325 million specifically for replacing lever and punch card voting systems.⁠² Limit: the EAC’s 2026 report says bursts “spurred some equipment upgrades” but did not create a replacement cycle.⁠⁴

State matching requirements. Recent federal grants require a 20 percent state match.⁠³ This shares cost and encourages state commitment, but may be hard for some states to meet quickly.

Private and philanthropic grants. In 2020 they filled pandemic gaps.⁠⁶ Most states have since restricted or regulated them,⁠⁶ which closes a source of influence concerns and also closes a source of emergency money.

Proposals for steady federal funding. The EAC’s 2026 report recommends that Congress “consider providing sustained funding for voting system upgrades and replacements to supplement local and state support”.⁠⁴ CRS notes officials describe security as “a race without a finish line” and that regular funding could help them plan.⁠² This has been proposed, not adopted on a sustained basis.

Competing interpretations

The sustained-federal-funding view holds that federal elections serve a national interest, so national funding should be regular, not crisis-driven. Supporters cite the EAC’s aging-equipment findings and replacement estimates.⁠⁴ and officials’ reported needs⁠⁵

The state-and-local responsibility view holds that elections are constitutionally run by states, that federal money brings federal mandates, and that states and counties should budget for their own elections. CRS records this federalism hesitation among some members and officials.⁠² On this view, the right fix is state appropriations, not a new federal program.

The private-funding critics’ view holds that private money in election offices invites undue influence or the appearance of favoring certain jurisdictions, which is the reason NCSL reports supporters of bans give.⁠⁶ Public confidence, on this view, requires public money only.

The private-funding defenders’ view holds that elections are chronically underfunded and that bans can block useful donations such as cybersecurity tools and polling place access, as NCSL reports opponents of bans argue.⁠⁶

The efficiency view holds that more money is not the only lever: shared purchasing, open-source tools, and better forecasting could reduce costs. The EAC report notes a small manufacturer pool and lengthy certification as barriers that money alone does not solve.⁠⁴

Most of these positions agree on one thing: unpredictable funding is a problem. They disagree about which level of government should fix it and with what conditions.

Application to this framework

My Vote Forward’s security chapter distinguishes current website security from the far more demanding requirements of any future official election system, and those requirements cost money. The governance chapter covers funding independence for the framework’s own operation, including why it is not a data business. The tradeoffs chapter explains why a subject’s importance and its budget are different questions, which applies to election administration too: people can rank election integrity highly while disagreeing about who should pay.

Unresolved questions

• What does it actually cost to run an election in the United States? Without a national ledger, comparisons rest on estimates and surveys.
• Would steady federal funding come with conditions that states would reject, and would the trade be worth it?
• Did private grants in 2020 favor particular jurisdictions in ways that mattered? Supporters and critics of bans disagree, and NCSL presents both views without resolving it.⁠⁶
• How should a funding formula account for jurisdiction size, language needs, and accessibility requirements?