https://crsreports.congress.gov
Updated March 27, 2025
Elections Grant Programs: Authorizations and Appropriations
Congress first authorized major federal grant programs for
elections in the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA;
P.L. 107-252). HAVA was enacted in response to issues
with the conduct of the 2000 elections. Like previous
federal elections statutes, it set requirements for the
administration of federal elections. Unlike previous
elections statutes, it also provided for grant programs to
help states meet those requirements and identify and
implement other improvements to election administration.
No new federal elections grant programs on the scale of
HAVA’s have been authorized as of this writing. Grant
programs have been established for certain more limited
purposes, however, such as improving the collection of
election data. Congress has also appropriated further funds
under HAVA’s grant programs, such as funding for
FY2020 to help states address the effects of the COVID-19
pandemic on administration of the 2020 elections.
This In Focus provides an overview of the elections-
specific grant programs Congress has established and
funded to date. It also briefly discusses non-elections-
specific grant programs that have been used to support
elections-related activities.
Elections-Specific Grant Programs
HAVA authorized two general grant programs for states
• a general improvements grant program that was
designed to help states make certain general
improvements to election administration; and
• a requirements payments program that was intended
primarily to help states meet the requirements set by
Title III of HAVA but could also be applied to more
general election administration improvements if a state
limited its spending on them to a specified level or had
already met the HAVA requirements.
The act also authorized more specialized grant programs
aimed at facilitating or incentivizing activities related to
voting systems, accessibility for voters with disabilities,
youth voter participation, and poll worker recruitment.
The Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE)
Act of 2009 (enacted as part of P.L. 111-84) set new
requirements for military and overseas voting and
authorized new funding for HAVA requirements payments
to help states meet them. Federal grant programs have also
been established since HAVA for reimbursing certain costs
of replacing voting systems (P.L. 108-7), improving
election data collection (P.L. 110-161), and conducting
pilot programs to test new election technologies for military
and overseas voters (P.L. 111-84).
HAVA’s two general grant programs were not originally
designed—and have not historically functioned—as regular
sources of new elections funding for states. Congress has
returned to one of them in recent years, though, to provide
states with further funding. It appropriated $400 million
under HAVA’s general improvements grant program to
help states address elections effects of COVID-19 (P.L.
116-136), as well as $380 million for FY2018 (P.L. 115-
141), $425 million for FY2020 (P.L. 116-93), $75 million
for FY2022 (P.L. 117-103), $75 million for FY2023 (P.L.
117-328), $55 million for FY2024 (P.L. 118-47), and $15
million for FY2025 (P.L. 119-4) for more general purposes.
With the exception of the COVID-19-related funding—
which states had to either obligate by December 31, 2020,
or return to the U.S. Treasury—funds provided under the
requirements payments and general improvements grant
programs have been available to recipients indefinitely.
States are not required to spend funds received under those
programs, or any interest the funds generate, within a
particular timeframe.
Table 1 summarizes the elections-specific grant programs
Congress has authorized and funded to date. For more on
those programs, see CRS Report WPD00035, Elections
Podcast: Federal Role in Elections Funding, by Karen L.
Shanton; and CRS Report R46646, Election
Administration: Federal Grant Funding for States and
Localities, by Karen L. Shanton.
Other Grant Programs
The U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) is the
only federal agency dedicated to election administration,
but other agencies have experience or expertise that may be
relevant to elections. The relevance of other agencies’
experience and expertise is reflected in choices about the
administration of the elections-specific grant programs
described in the previous section. For example, although the
EAC oversees most elections-specific grant programs,
Congress assigned responsibility for some of the disability
access and military and overseas voting funding to the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the
U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), respectively.
The relevance of other agencies’ work to elections is also
reflected in the availability of some non-elections-specific
funding for elections-related activities. A complete account
of all of the federal grant programs that have been or could
be used to support elections activities is beyond the scope
of this In Focus, but U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and
U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) programs
offer some illustrative examples. Following reports of an
increase in threats to election workers in and after the 2020
election cycle, DOJ confirmed that some of its grants could
be used to address such threats. DHS has reimbursed certain
elections costs of disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina;
required recipients of some of its homeland security grants
to allocate part of the funding to election security projects;
and encouraged state and local cybersecurity grantees to
include election officials on their planning committees.
