NC Election Funding Lags Far Behind
For too long, election administration has been underfunded in our state. The result has been to depress voter turnout, reinforce discriminatory barriers to the ballot box for people of color, young people, and people with disabilities, and undermine trust in the outcome of elections. While North Carolinians across the state will be impacted by new photo ID rules, rural, Black, and young voters will experience greater barriers to successfully cast their ballots.
The NC General Assembly must fully fund the State Board of Elections, ensuring that costs to implement NC’s burdensome and frequent changes to voting laws are not passed down to counties. Studies show that inadequate funding for elections predominantly hurts voters in rural communities and is correlated with decreased voter turnout. Here in NC, we have seen a concerning trend of decreased election spending in locations with large BIPOC populations, rural communities, and in counties that house some of our largest HBCUs.
What does this look like on the ground? In 2022:
Duplin County only had one early voting site due to a lack of funding, despite its size (the 9th largest county in land area). Turnout in Duplin (48.8%) was well below the statewide average.
Onslow County spent the least amount of money on elections per voter and consequently had the lowest voter turnout in the state. Election administrators have reported having fewer meetings due to the low wages provided to elected officials.
Mecklenburg County, home to Johnson C. Smith University, ranked 93rd (out of 100) in voter turnout and ranked 70th (out of 83) for the amount spent per voter. It is the 7th fastest growing county in NC.
Rowan County, home to Livingstone College, ranked 76th in voter turnout and 69th (out of 83) for the amount spent per voter. Rowan is the 31st fastest growing county in NC.
Guilford County, home to the nation’s largest HBCU—North Carolina A&T State University—as well as Bennett College, ranked 75th in voter turnout and 61st (out of 83) for amount spent per voter. Guilford is the 23rd fastest growing county in NC.
It’s clear that counties cannot be solely responsible for funding our elections, and cannot keep up with the erratic changes to election laws made by the NC Legislature without additional support. A conservative estimate of the true cost of implementation for NC’s new voter ID law is at least $11 million, which would support voter education and outreach, training, and provisional voting operations at higher levels in all 100 North Carolina counties. States that have implemented Voter ID have seen much higher costs to the state, as well. Researchers put the estimated cost for Minnesota to implement voter ID at $10 to $13.5 million, with additional costs of $26.5 to $63.6 million at the county level.
The draft budget that leaked earlier this week from the NCGA includes a paltry $2.7 million to implement voter ID and the myriad changes proposed in this year’s omnibus voting bill, SB 747—which includes numerous changes that will unduly burden county boards of elections and poll workers. While leftover funds from prior years were also released for use in 2023-2024, this is a drop in the bucket compared to what is truly needed to educate voters, hire and train election workers, and implement these changes in all 100 counties across the state.
We urge you to contact your NC Senator and NC House member and ask them to fully fund NC elections. Click here to find your legislators.