Key findings and new ideas for funding America's elections system

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BOLSTERING ELECTIONS
Summary of Bolstering Elections Kickoff Symposium
Earlier this year, the Kennedy Institute announced ([link removed]) a partnership with the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics to promote investment in American electoral administration and processes.

At the kickoff Bolstering Elections Symposium ([link removed]) in Lawrence, Kansas, the Institutes assembled a working group of policy experts and practitioners for panel discussions on why the study of funding our elections system is so difficult as compared to other critical government services.

Our elections are reliable and secure, yet chronic underfunding increases the risk that problems might occur, which in turn contributes to undermining trust.
Key findings from the Symposium:
1. Elections administration is part of a complex intergovernmental arrangement between federal, county, and town officials.

2. With about 200,000 precincts and 130,000 polling places across America, collecting reliable data on how elections are funded and the efficacy of that funding is elusive.

3. Running elections across America costs about $4-6 billion a year, and costs continue to rise due to national and international threats. However, insufficient data makes it difficult to understand how much funding is needed and spent locally.

4. There are benefits and challenges to the "bottom-up" elections system that is funded and run at the county level. While some see it as keeping the process closer to voters, others believe it places an unsustainable financial burden on local government.

5. There is a critical need to focus on the voters, not politics, when it comes to administering elections.
Where do we go from here?

In the final video ([link removed]) from the symposium, Matt Weil, executive director of the Bipartisan Policy Center's Democracy Program, says there is an unsustainable financial burden placed on local governments to hold elections. Weil stresses the need for innovative approaches to create a federal, consistent, and non-discretionary source of funding to administer elections nationwide.

Learn more
Click here ([link removed]) to learn more about our Bolstering Elections initiative with the Dole Institute and meet our working group members.

Stay tuned for more Bolstering Elections programming updates throughout the year!

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