Elections in the U.S. are usually run at the local level. Figuring out who funds election administration can help you ask questions about whether funding levels are sufficient.
Former Congressman Tip O’Neill famously said “all politics is local.”
The same applies to election administration in the U.S., which is markedly decentralized. On Election Day, county- and city-level poll workers are the people who make sure voters can smoothly cast their ballots for measures and candidates vying for offices spanning all levels of government.
But this fundamental democratic function isn’t free, and election administrators often say they have a lot to do on limited budgets, research shows. State and local governments — not the federal government — are usually responsible for election administration costs.
Some of the biggest ongoing costs are related to statewide voter registration rolls, which can cost millions of dollars a year to build and maintain, according to to a 2022 report by Massachusetts Institute of Technology political scientist Charles Stewart III.
