Election Officials From 2 Key Swing States Request More Federal Money

Election officials from Michigan and Arizona, two key swing states in November’s election, requested more federal money during a congressional hearing on Wednesday.

Michigan Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Arizona Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes asked the House Administration Committee, which oversees federal elections, to continue funding their efforts, to improve election security, replace aging machines, hire personnel and upgrade voter registration systems.

Meanwhile, they and election officials from News Mexico, Florida, Ohio and West Virginia have said that they’ve been stretching the resources they currently have to help eligible voters participate in the general election and make sure ineligible voters are not a part of the process.

Fontes told the committee about the work that Arizona has been doing to improve election security and voter confidence this year, including hosting tabletop exercises, deploying a statewide ballot-tracking system and deploying technology workers to help county election offices.

However, the state secretary told the committee, “none of this is free” and there is still “zero sustained and dependable federal funding for this critical infrastructure.”

“Do the same for highways and dams and railroads and see what happens,” Fontes said. “We implore you, please consider, if this is such a big deal and if it is so important that we continue to have free, fair and secure elections, fund them.”

The hearing came as the first mailed ballots of the 2024 general election went out to absentee voters in Alabama.

Also on Wednesday, two groups that represent top election administrators in all 50 states—the National Association of Secretaries of State and the National Association of State Election Directors—sent a letter to U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy detailing shortcomings of the mail service over the past year and requesting that DeJoy “take immediate and tangible corrective action to address the ongoing performance issues with USPS election mail service.”

All of this comes amid the backdrop of distrust in elections among former President Donald Trump’s base. Trump, the 2024 GOP presidential nominee, sowed doubts about mail-in ballots ahead of the 2020 election, which he lost to President Joe Biden. He then repeatedly claimed, without substantial evidence, that the election was stolen from him via widespread voter fraud.

Trump and his supporters have continued to claim the 2020 election was rigged and during the first presidential debate with Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris in Philadelphia Tuesday night, Trump refused to acknowledge that he lost the 2020 election.

House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil, a Wisconsin Republican, responded to the calls for more funding by pushing the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act passed by the Republican-led House in July, which would require those registering to vote to provide documentary proof of United States citizenship. It is already illegal to vote as a noncitizen.

Steil told Secretary Benson that the SAVE Act would give election workers free access to a federal database to help them check if noncitizens are on the voter registration lists, also known as voter rolls. Benson, however, said that Michigan already thoroughly checks voter citizenship.

Noncitizen voting fraud has become a national topic among Trump and other Republicans who claim, without sufficient evidence, that illegal immigrants, which America has seen an influx of in recent years, are registering to vote in this year’s election.

“American elections have proven to be secure, time and time again, because of the policies we already use to verify voters,” Trevor Potter, president of the Campaign Legal Center, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “Our system of checks and balances leaves no room for doubt that the official vote count is accurate.”

This article includes reporting from The Associated Press.