Just days before the 2020 general election, the Government Accountability Office still doesn’t know how much money it will have to spend on improving local voting systems.
At the end of October, the GAO had just $15 million to fund projects it planned on handling next year. But with the midterm elections having taken place a little over a month earlier, the GAO decided it would need to do more research and planning for its on-the-job training.
In December, the GAO told Congress the 20 percent of its funding was already spent — well beyond its initial estimates. “Although the agency expects to receive an additional $50 million in fiscal year 2019, several major projects have yet to begin, which leaves the agency with only $15 million for work in FY2020,” the GAO told the Government Accountability Committee last month.
And the GAO isn’t sure it’ll have the extra money, either. This year, Congress withheld about $70 million in funding from the Federal Election Commission as the administration negotiates its new spending plan. The political parties — with their personal staffs — had about $130 million less to spend on national elections than they had in 2018.
Asked if there was a chance Congress would turn some of that money back, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said: “Very doubtful.”
That means, next year, federal election officials will have to spend $80 million, the same as they did in 2016, to check voting systems, update voter databases and examine overseas voter challenges — totaling around $500 million. Or, in some cases, to buy more printers and machines.
[Additional reporting by Tim Mak.]