A merica is still an exceptional place, and our founders’ dreams and intentions are alive and admired around the world. This is the case largely thanks to our elections, which reflect the wishes of our citizens and are literally run by them. American elections are overseen and funded almost entirely at the local level, by the more than 10,000 local jurisdictions that administer them. What this means in practice is that city and county governments pay for most of the technology, facilities, training, and staff that keep our elections running. State governments also chip in, especially when it comes to statewide voter registration systems.

Should the federal government help out and provide some resources? “If we have federal races on our ballot, the federal government should contribute financial support.” This direct statement by Republican Stephen Richer, county recorder of Maricopa County, Arizona, seems so obvious on its face. Indeed, federal races appear on every jurisdiction’s ballot every two years—and as Wesley Wilcox, the supervisor of elections for Marion County, Florida, noted, they occupy “the prime real estate on the ballot.” But sadly, the federal government does not come close to contributing even minimal financial support for American elections.

Election officials keep our democracy running, but they often do it without the resources they need—and in the face of mounting political pressure and harassment by grievously misinformed citizens who falsely believe that the 2020 election was illegitimate. These officials now live in a hostile environment where they regularly receive threatening and harassing phone calls, are followed to their cars at work, and are even targeted with Fentanyl-laced letters. This is not how the people who keep our democracy running deserve to be treated.

Shortly after the election administration failures in Florida in 2000, the federal government provided a large influx of funding through the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). But much of that went to buying new voting equipment in 2005 and 2006, and those machines are now sadly antiquated. As Barb Byrum, the clerk of Ingham County, Michigan, explained, “Election equipment—the computers that run elections—are outdated the day they are purchased.” Upgrades and updates to these machines are essential and expensive. In many states, election officials are using voting machine models that are no longer produced. Some have even resorted to buying old machines for spare parts.

The need is even more acute in rural areas. As Byrum noted about rural Michigan, “In some of those places, there is no internet access. They have to go an hour away to get some type of internet access. For me, in my area, they go to McDonalds to download the electronic poll book.” Zachary Mohr of the University of Kansas has found that elections are more expensive to run in rural areas because “[T]here are high fixed costs of voting equipment and fewer people.” People in rural areas deserve the same first-class election infrastructure as those living in wealthy and highly populated areas. We have represented very different districts, one in Indiana that has hundreds of farms and a wealth of agricultural communities, and the other in Virginia, with cities and towns connected by busy highways. Both deserve the support and protection of the United States.

Where in all of this, you might ask, is the federal government? That’s not a simple question to answer. Elections are run by local and state officials, but Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution does set an explicit federal role in regulating the “Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives.” Federal agencies like the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and Department of Justice are deeply involved in preparing election offices at all levels to counter cyber and physical security threats. These threats are clear and growing: Russia waged an expansive campaign to infiltrate our election systems in 2016; Iranian hackers managed to access confidential voter information in 2020; and senior officials have warned that foreign adversaries could attack our election systems this year too. A federal role and response in addressing such threats are clear and expected. By way of analogy, if the Defense Department knows that an attack by an enemy missile or aircraft is imminent, defense funds are used to protect our domestic assets in both rural and urban areas in all 50 states. But none of this helps a poll worker who doesn’t have internet access.

The bulk of the federal government’s funding and support for elections comes from the Election Assistance Commission (EAC). The EAC was created by HAVA on a bipartisan basis, and its four-commissioner structure, with two Republicans and two Democrats appointed by the President with Senate approval, is meant to maintain a neutral approach to election administration. The EAC’s goal is to serve as a clearinghouse of election information and best practices and to distribute federal funds directly to states in the form of election security grants. Yet, its ability to distribute the resources is entirely dependent on Congress appropriating these monies each year. And Congress, as we both painfully know, is too often distracted, dysfunctional, and divided.

In 2018 and 2020, Congress stepped up and provided $380 million and $425 million, respectively, in election security grants. Through the bipartisan CARES Act of 2020, Congress also provided an additional $400 million in emergency election funding. Since then, even though election officials’ needs have dramatically increased—in part due to new and changing state laws and growing physical and cybersecurity threats—federal funding has lagged. After appropriating nothing at all for election funding in 2021, Congress appropriated merely $75 million for election infrastructure in both 2022 and 2023. For 2024, that number has sagged to $55 million. These investments are nowhere close to what is needed: Nonpartisan research has estimated that modernizing American elections would cost more than $53 billion over ten years.

In the midst of negotiations over fiscal year 2025, the House Appropriations Committee voted earlier this year to again provide no federal election funding. As USA Today columnist Chris Brennan astutely noted in response to Republican members who voted to cut these grants even as members of their own party repeatedly raised unfounded concerns about election integrity: “If our elections are at risk, why reject funding to protect them?” After all, who else can election officials turn to? We should not encourage or accept contributions from private-sector billionaires, regardless of their political affiliation or intentions. While philanthropists like Mark Zuckerberg stepped in during the 2020 election to help fund basic operations, election officials shouldn’t have to rely on private citizens to fund our election infrastructure. Election administration is nonpartisan, and Congress has an important role to play in ensuring that those on the front lines have what they need to keep our democracy running so that every eligible voter has an opportunity for their voice to be heard.

Congress’s repeated failures on election funding have led to the discussion of innovative and wide-ranging reforms in the past few years. Most notable among these is the Sustaining Our Democracy Act, which would provide a decade’s worth of dedicated funds for election administration. Another idea is to convert the long-defunct Presidential Election Campaign Fund, which was intended to support public financing of elections, into election administration funding. This proposal, first put forward by the Bipartisan Policy Center in 2022, would remove election funding from the annual appropriations process and potentially guarantee consistent funding to states each year.

One thing is clear: We should be grateful to the tens of thousands of patriotic citizens who help keep our elections free and fair. These election workers and volunteers in our local communities make up the faces of our democracy. We can count on them to get the job done again this year. But just as the volunteers step forward to do their jobs, Congress shrinks from its duties at a critical moment. Our election officials now serve on the front lines in a struggle against not only domestic actors seeking to undermine trust in our electoral processes—including former President Trump, who continues to deride our elections—but our foreign adversaries as well, such as Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran. These anti-democratic regimes have escalated their cyberwarfare tactics and covert influence campaigns since 2015. Dan Coats, then Trump’s director of national intelligence, described Russia’s interference efforts as “pervasive” and “ongoing” from the White House briefing room in 2018, and Russia is now taking advantage of a toxic information environment to escalate its efforts to influence this year’s election. In recent months, we have also seen Iran target both the Trump and Biden presidential campaigns, successfully hacking Trump’s campaign apparatus.

Former Jefferson County, Colorado Clerk and Recorder George Stern explained his call for federal support this way: “Many of the things local election offices are now dealing with are cyber threats from foreign entities. A clerk and recorder is not able to take on the Russian government’s cyber operation. We need the resources of the federal government to be able to do that.” As Wesley Wilcox of Florida stated, securing election systems properly entails costs that recur year after year: “If I spent $1,000 on an antivirus program this year, well, guess what? Next year, it is going to be $1,000, too. If I paid for that with federal funds, next year, I am going to have to try to figure out how to pay for it with our own funds.” By actually appropriating election funds on a consistent basis—or by adopting reforms that make the funding automatic—Congress can help these dedicated local professionals make the good investments that will pay off in long-term American national security.

As we wrote in a letter to congressional appropriators earlier this year, alongside a bipartisan coalition of former members of Congress, governors, national security officials, and election workers, “Congress cannot abandon election officials to combat these threats alone.”

Republicans and Democrats should be in close agreement on this. The two of us have disagreed on many things during our time in public service. But not on this. Federal support for our election security is fundamentally about safeguarding democracy and the freedoms enshrined in our Constitution. The voice of the people should be accurately recorded and securely protected against threats of interference, both foreign and domestic. Regardless of political affiliation, we should all have confidence that our election officials—including those in rural communities, who are no less deserving of the same first-class election infrastructure that we all want—are equipped with the tools and resources to guarantee that American elections remain a beacon of hope to the world.

Investments in modern, secure voting systems, comprehensive auditing processes, trained staff, and rigorous cybersecurity measures are all essential steps. Undertaking them should be a nonpartisan issue. These investments are about preventing potential fraud and security breaches, which will not only strengthen our democracy, but also foster increased public trust in our electoral processes for generations to come.