Should the federal government spend more money on conducting elections?
A new report examines inventive ways the federal government could spend on elections, including ‘ballot real estate’ and ‘ballot eyeballs.’
The coronavirus pandemic collided with a presidential election in 2020, making in-person voting hazardous. In response to the unprecedented situation, the federal government infused its election administration with $400 million to help states and local governments buy PPE equipment for polling places, and hurriedly set up mail-in ballot infrastructures. That was a rare intervention from the federal government, marking only the third time in the past two decades it has injected money into elections, which have traditionally been a budgetary matter for state and municipal governments.