Global Courant 2023-04-29 13:32:19
COLUMBIA, SC — Leading up to the 2024 presidential election, officials in several battleground states have proposed increasing funding to add staff, improve security, and expand training within election bureaus facing heavier workloads and heightened public scrutiny.
The potential additional funding comes as many election agencies grapple with a surge in retirements and a deluge of public record requests, due in part to lingering election mistrust seeded by former President Donald Trump in his 2020 defeat.
In South Carolina, host of one of the first presidential primaries, nearly half of district election directors have resigned in the past two years, said Howard Knapp, executive director of the state’s election commission.
The unprecedented revenue has created a “massive knowledge and skills gap,” Knapp said, prompting a budget call for millions of additional state dollars to boost staffing and training. Without the funds, Knapp warned the gap will widen and the election will be “seriously affected”.
“I have no control over the departure of district directors,” Knapp said. He added: “What I can verify is the ability of this agency to provide quality training to the provinces so that no matter who the chairman is, they have an established training program that they can follow and deliver themselves.”
Election officials, governors and legislators in states that hold early primaries or play critical roles in the presidential election, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Wisconsin, have also proposed increases in funding. In many of those states, legislators are still working on the final budget.
Time is of the essence. Most annual state budgets go into effect in July, meaning they will include presidential primaries in the first half of 2024. Once funding is approved, election officials need time to hire and train employees and purchase new security and voting equipment.
Georgia, where a grand jury has investigated whether Trump and his allies illegally interfered in the 2020 election, is one of about a dozen states where lawmakers have already approved a 2024 budget. The Republican-led General Assembly added $427,010 to hire two investigators, an administrative assistant and an executive director for the State Electoral Board.
One state still weighing more election spending is Arizona, which became a focus of election challenges and conspiracies after Trump narrowly lost the state in 2020.
Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs, a Democrat who previously served as 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 publish recommendations in November on ways to standardize election practices, update election equipment and security guidelines, and provide training to local workers.
Arizona Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes is pushing for an additional $3.1 million in election-related spending, in part to add six employees to train and certify election officials and a new chief information security officer to address cyber vulnerabilities in election systems to grab.
There is no evidence of widespread fraud or tampering of voting devices in the 2020 election. Yet distrust of the US election remains among Republicans, fueled by Trump allies who have toured the country to expose theoretical vulnerabilities. to take.
In the past three years, nearly every election office across the country has seen an increase in requests for public records, said Tammy Patrick, chief executive officer for programs at the National Association of Election Officials.
South Carolina experienced a 500% increase in election-related requests for public records, largely driven by election skeptics submitting model language crafted by out-of-state conspiracy groups, Knapp said. The state election commission is asking for $3.2 million to set up a new training division and improve technical support. Knapp also wants about $1.2 million to hire seven staff, including a public relations officer to respond to media, voters and advocacy groups.
Proponents of polling stations said strong training is especially important in a hostile environment where bad-faith actors can twist instances of incompetence or irregularities to undermine election integrity.
Cynthia Holland, who oversees the election for Aiken County, a sprawling rural county in western South Carolina, said the funded training would be a “blessing.” She estimated that as of November 2020, her four-person office has spent more than 100 hours answering file requests.
“It’s enough time it leaves us with our jobs that we’re supposed to be hired for,” she said.
Officials in Nevada, Oregon and Wisconsin have also proposed financial increases to hire additional staff to handle public requests for election reports and information.
Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat, proposed spending $1.9 million over the next two fiscal years to hire 10 staff for a new election transparency and compliance office to handle requests and complaints. Until recently, the Wisconsin Election Commission had only one attorney to handle complaints and one information officer.
“Unfortunately, this structure has proved inadequate to address the hundreds of thousands of questions and concerns, along with hundreds of requests for records and complaints,” the election commission wrote in its budget request.
Separate budget plans from the Democratic governor of North Carolina and the Republican-led House both include money to hire more regional staff to help county election boards with technology, security and other needs.
Democratic Governor of Michigan Gretchen Whitmer is seeking to increase the Secretary of State’s overall budget by nearly $10 million, including a $3 million increase for affiliates and $1.2 million to expand staff for seven mobile offices. But the increase is significantly less than the $100 million a year that Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson says is needed to “address historic election disinvestment in Michigan.”
According to a recent Brennan Center for Justice survey of 852 local election officials, about three-quarters of local election officials in the US say their budgets need to grow in the coming years. The nonpartisan, democracy-focused policy institute stressed the need for increased spending to hire pollsters and office workers, replace voting equipment, and improve physical and cybersecurity measures.
“Business is under pressure – there is no doubt about that. Electoral challenges are growing,” said Lawrence Norden, director of the Brennan Center’s Election and Government Program. “There is a lot of concern in the election community about what can be done in the remaining 18 months to ensure our elections are as strong and secure as possible.”
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Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Missouri. AP reporters in the US contributed to this report.
Pollard, Cappelletti and Venhuizen are corps members for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a non-profit national service program that places journalists on local newsrooms to report on undercover issues.
