As threats grow, funds for election security see a squeeze

Election officials across the country struggle to enhance security measures to adequately safeguard workers and ensure voting integrity in advance of Election Day

When the ballot counting begins inside Arizona’s Maricopa County Tabulation Center this November, election workers will be protected behind doors and windows with bullet-proof glass and two layers of fencing. Security cameras will be monitored for suspicious activity inside and outside the building. A fleet of police drones and rooftop snipers will be at the ready. In many ways, the county’s election headquarters has been transformed into “a fortress,” says Bill Gates, a member of the county’s Board of Supervisors who has received repeated death threats for rejecting bogus claims that officials helped steal elections in 2020 and 2022. He says the new safety measures reflect “the reality of elections in 2024.” Such precautions were unheard of a few years ago. But during the ballot count in 2020, when armed MAGA protesters — inflamed by former President Donald Trump’s false claims of election cheating — swarmed the tabulation center and forced police to lock workers and reporters inside for their own safety, county leaders decided more needed to be done. That’s why Maricopa County has spent over $864,000 in federal funds and more than $3 million in county funds to bolster its election security and processes over the past four years. But that level of planning and preparation stands in stark contrast with that of many other locales across the country with similar worries about election-related turmoil this November. A CNN review has found that, amid an exodus of experienced workers and leaders, election officials across the country have struggled to enhance security measures to adequately safeguard workers and ensure voting integrity in advance of Election Day. Officials readily shared their worries with CNN, citing death threats, harassment, baseless lawsuits, onerous public-records requests and various security threats spurred by false claims about voter fraud. Amid these challenges, budgets for election security have been squeezed in several ways. In recent years, Congress has slashed funding under the 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA), the main dedicated source of federal money to help run and secure elections. Then, too, for a variety of reasons, many states have been slow to spend millions of dollars of the available HAVA money. And legislatures in more than half of US states, many of them buying into election disinformation, have barred or limited the use of private funds that many election officials say helped them run secure elections in 2020.