Turn on a television or social media stream these days and chances are you’ll see a Republican member of Congress warning that America’s elections are rife with fraud that must be eradicated for the good of the country.
These claims are always long on suspicion and short on evidence. But let’s say for a moment we believe the Republicans who insist our elections need more safeguarding.
Try to square that with what Republicans on the House Committee on Appropriations plan to do Thursday – slashing from the federal budget grants for election security and administration.
Doesn’t add up, right? If our elections are at risk, why reject funding to protect them?
I had questions for the Republicans making these moves. I guess they didn’t have answers, because they didn’t want to explain these cuts to me.
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GOP plan to secure elections? Slash the security budget.
President Joe Biden, in budget negotiations for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1, proposed $96 million in election security grants administered by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. That commission’s budget was also proposed to increase overall from $27.7 million in the current fiscal year to $134 million.
Former President Donald Trump, a convicted felon and the presumptive Republican nominee, still spews lies at every campaign stop about the 2020 election being “rigged” for Biden’s victory while predicting more of the same in November. He’s often joined on stage by Republicans who hold public office and echo Trump’s lies.
So what do the Republicans, who control the House, propose for election security and administration? The House subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government last week voted to cut the $96 million in election security grants, and to cut the proposed funding for the Election Assistance Commission from $134 million to just $20 million, which is $7.7 million less than the current fiscal year.
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Rep. David Joyce, the Ohio Republican who chairs the subcommittee that slashed the election grants, didn’t address any of that in his remarks after last week’s vote. I asked Joyce’s staff for a rationale. They had nothing for me.
Those cuts now go to the full House Committee on Appropriations for a hearing Thursday morning.
Rep. Tom Cole, the Oklahoma Republican who chairs that committee, in a list of takeaways about the proposed budget last week described cutting the $96 million for election security grants as a way to focus the Biden administration “on its core responsibilities.”
Cole, who on the same day as the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection voted against certifying the 2020 election results, justified that this way in a news release at the time: “The voters I represent are not concerned about the fairness of elections in Oklahoma. However, they are concerned about fairness and transparency in other states.”
Why now slash election grants as his party screams about threats to elections? Cole didn’t respond to my questions.
Talk is cheap but election security costs money
Derek Tisler, an attorney for the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice‘s Elections and Government Program, said congressionally approved funding has been decreasing for election security grants, down from $75 million in fiscal years 2022 and 2023 and then $55 million this fiscal year. In the three years leading up to the 2020 election, that spending was nearly $800 million in total, he said.
“It really shows the emptiness of a lot of these allegations that our elections are not secure or are not trustworthy,” Tisler told me. “If you care about security, if you care about transparency, if you care about efficiency – those things cost money.”
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As federal funding has been dropping for election grants, state legislatures, often driven by bogus claims of election fraud, have spent the years since the 2020 election passing laws to ban or restrict the use of private grants to help pay for election security and administration.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 28 states – including the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – now have such laws.
‘Prioritization problems’ abound
Keara Mendez, director of advocacy at the Center for Tech and Civic Life, called the lack of federal funding a nonpartisan “prioritization problem.”
“We know that election security is the No. 1 issue for voters on both sides of the aisle,” Mendez told me. “We know that there’s widespread support from voters and also from members that we speak to in Congress.”
Funding election administration and security at the state and local level, she said, creates more public trust in the outcome of our elections.
“And so if anyone right now is thinking, we have this crisis in trust in our democracy, the answer is fully funding our elections,” Mendez said.
Congress should put up or shut up on elections security
What if – now hear me out here – all those congressional Republicans wailing about election integrity are really just spouting obligatory partisan rhetoric because that’s what Trump wants? What if they don’t really buy any of that?
It would certainly explain why they won’t pay to stop alleged problems they can’t substantiate with evidence.
Elections have grown more complicated since 2020, with more states offering early voting and mail ballots. This creates new expenses for state and local governments, for printing of ballots, storage, new machines to count them, more transparency in the process like livestreaming to boost security and public confidence.
Voters should carefully consider the cognitive dissonance of baseless Republican claims of voter fraud and their refusal to fund efficient elections. It’s long past time for Congress to put up or shut up when it comes to elections.
Follow USA TODAY elections columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan
