Ahead of the 2024 presidential election, officials in several battleground states have proposed boosting funding to add staff, enhance security and expand training within election offices that are facing heavier workloads and heightened public scrutiny.
The potential extra funding comes as many election offices are grappling with a wave of retirements and a flood of public records requests, stemming partly from lingering election distrust seeded by former President Donald Trump in his 2020 defeat.
In South Carolina, host of one of the earliest presidential primaries, almost half of county election directors have resigned in the last two years, said state Election Commission Executive Director Howard Knapp.
The unprecedented turnover has created an “enormous knowledge and competency gap,” Knapp said, prompting a budget request for millions of additional state dollars to boost staffing and training. Without the funds, Knapp warned the gap will grow and elections will be “severely impacted.”
“I can’t control county directors leaving,” said Knapp. He added, “What I can control is this agency’s ability to deliver quality training to the counties so that it doesn’t matter who is in the chair, they will have an established training program that they can take themselves and they can impart.”
