Federal money is needed for elections offices to be both transparent and secure

In the 23 years I’ve worked at Thurston County Elections, we’ve worked out of the same modest steel buildings in the Mottman Industrial Park. While these structures are among the most important public buildings in Thurston County, you most likely have never seen them.

Our Ballot Processing Center is bursting at the seams while public financing for elections lags. Between 2008 and 2020, the number of ballots coming back to us increased by almost a third, from 128,006 to 169,231. We are in the midst of addressing the issue of insufficient space. In any given general election, we need to accommodate up to 150 staff to inspect and process ballots.

We are also bringing our Voter Services team to the same facility.

Election offices in Washington are luckier than others. A couple years ago, the state legislature began paying their own election costs in even years for the first time. This closed a gaping hole in funding for local election offices, but it does not mean we are without needs.

We are facing two conflicting pressures: transparency and threats to election officials. The increasing amount of elections disinformation stresses the need for continued transparency, and the best transparency is in-person election observers. But increasing disinformation also has resulted in direct threats to election officials.

Unfortunately, we don’t have the funding we need to expand and retrofit our facility to increase transparency while also providing security to our election staff.

The need to protect election infrastructure is well understood nationwide.

In 2017, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) designated election infrastructure as “part of the existing Government Facilities critical infrastructure sector.” This means that elections are in the same category as our electrical grid and water systems.

While we understand the need, the public resources to meet the demand aren’t coming, specifically from the federal government.

According to a report from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “[the] current level of spending puts elections at near the bottom of spending for public services, ranking at approximately the same levels as spending by local governments to maintain parking facilities.”

There is strong public support for federal investments in our election infrastructure. Election infrastructure is critical national security infrastructure. But we don’t fund it that way.

In the absence of stable federal funding, we face a high hurdle to balance transparency with the security of our facilities. Congress should fund state and local election departments with $20 billion over 10 years.

Tillie Naputi-Pullar is the Elections Manager in the Thurston County Auditor’s Office.

This story was originally published July 10, 2022 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Federal money is needed for elections offices to be both transparent and secure."