This is a guest opinion column
As the 2024 election season heats up, offering assistance to our hardworking state and local election officials should be of great interest to all of us. However, Congress missed a golden opportunity in their recent comprehensive spending package when they failed to ensure that our election infrastructure is fully funded. Congress should consider returning federal election infrastructure funding levels to where they stood under the previous administration.
Despite the growing need to secure and modernize our election infrastructure in communities throughout Alabama and nationwide, federal funding has declined in recent years. Under the Trump Administration, for example, federal appropriations intended for election security and infrastructure totaled around $400 million annually. Unfortunately, in FY 2022 and 2023, that figure dropped drastically to $75 million—well below what is needed to ensure the safety and security of election administration activities nationwide.
In the most recent, last-minute spending package passed by Congress, lawmakers whittled that amount down even further, allocating only $55 million to election security in FY 2024. That is an embarrassingly low amount, particularly considering the need local, county, and state officials will be facing during such a critical election year.
Elected officials always need to evaluate, assess, and sometimes reduce government spending; however, election security is a smart use of federal funds that should be a priority for all of us and not an afterthought.
While election management is a local issue, many municipalities, counties, and states rely on federal funding to access the resources they need to purchase equipment, provide training, compensate staff, and ensure the availability of basic resources needed to operate and manage polling places and other election administration activities safely and securely.
All Americans should agree that securing our elections is a priority that may necessarily warrant federal resources, which is why Congress should consider an additional appropriation for election security in FY 2025.
Returning to previous levels of federal investment in our nation’s election infrastructure will help those in charge of election administration not only with their basic needs but also to ensure that our election infrastructure is secure from those who wish to do us harm, both domestically and internationally. Unfortunately, far too many of these facilities across our state—especially in rural parts of Alabama—must deal with insufficient resources. And as technology evolves, so will the threats facing our election systems, including cyber threats and ransomware attacks. These advancements, both positive and negative, will require updating our equipment and ensuring adequate staffing and training in election offices and polling places throughout the great state of Alabama and throughout the nation.
Investing in America’s election security is urgent, and clearly bipartisan. But with federal funding for this issue on a steady decline, it will become increasingly difficult for our hardworking state and local election officials, who are public servants in every sense of the word, to meet even their most basic needs.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle should work together to ensure the proper allocation of needed resources to strengthen and support America’s election infrastructure, particularly in rural communities that often face the greatest need. They must work together to ensure the next round of funding for election administration, considering both security and infrastructure, in FY 2025 is more in line with previous amounts, up to $400 million dedicated to this issue during the Trump Administration.
Ultimately, these funds will help the jurisdictions in most need of support to help preserve and strengthen the security and safety of the 2024 elections and all elections moving forward.
John H. Merrill served in the Alabama House of Representatives from 2010-2014 and as Alabama’s 53rd Secretary of State from 2015-2023.
