Congress is weighing legislation that would significantly reduce funding for the federal government’s primary election security agency, even as President Donald Trump presses lawmakers to adopt stricter voting requirements ahead of November’s midterm elections.
Why It Matters
The U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) is the only federal agency whose sole mission is helping states and local governments conduct secure elections. Proposed cuts to the agency’s budget and grant programs would reduce the resources available to election administrators across the country, including in Arizona, at a time when both parties publicly claim election security as a priority.
What Happened
The House Appropriations Committee approved legislation in April that would reduce EAC operating funds from $23.86 million to $17 million for fiscal year 2027 — a reduction of nearly 29 percent. The same measure would cut the agency’s election security grant program from $45 million to $15 million, a two-thirds reduction.
The full House has not yet voted on the bill, and the Senate retains the authority to modify or reject those cuts before any final appropriations measure becomes law.
At the same time, Trump has been pushing the SAVE America Act, a package of voting restrictions that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and photo identification at polling places. The House passed the bill in February, but it stalled in the Senate amid opposition from Democrats and a small number of Republicans.
In his State of the Union address on February 24, Trump told Congress and the nation that “cheating is rampant in our elections” — a claim he offered without supporting evidence. Federal data and state-level investigations have consistently found that noncitizen voting is an extremely rare occurrence.
By the Numbers
The trajectory of federal election security grant funding tells a story of sharp decline. Congress approved $380 million in grants in 2018 following documented foreign interference in the 2016 election. That figure rose to $425 million in 2020, with an additional $400 million in pandemic-related election aid. Since then, annual grant allocations have fallen steeply:
- $75 million — appropriated in both 2022 and 2023
- $55 million — appropriated in 2024
- $15 million — appropriated in 2025
- $45 million — approved for 2026, an election year, before the proposed House cuts
The EAC, established by Congress in 2002, has used grant funds since 2018 to help election administrators upgrade voting technology, strengthen cybersecurity, improve physical security, and counter voter misinformation.
Democrats Push Back
Democratic lawmakers have sharply criticized the simultaneous push for voting restrictions and cuts to election security infrastructure. Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland argued that Republicans “claim falsely that our elections are plagued by fraud” while at the same time moving to cut the EAC’s overall budget by nearly 30 percent and election security grants by two-thirds.
Rep. Sanford Bishop of Georgia framed the proposed cuts as a contradiction, contending that lawmakers who genuinely want to protect elections from foreign interference would back that commitment with adequate resources rather than reduce them.
Republicans backing the cuts have generally argued that federal spending should be reduced across agencies, and that election administration is primarily a state and local responsibility.
Zoom Out
The debate over election security funding reflects a broader tension in Republican policy between calls for tighter voting restrictions at the federal level and skepticism about the federal role in funding or overseeing how states run their elections. Arizona has been a focal point of that tension, with ongoing disputes between county recorders and state lawmakers over control of election procedures. Separately, shifting attitudes toward ballot collection practices have illustrated how election-related strategies can evolve rapidly within the party.
What’s Next
The Senate will have the opportunity to revise or reject the proposed EAC cuts before any appropriations bill reaches the president’s desk. The SAVE America Act faces an uncertain path in the Senate, where it has not secured the votes needed for passage. Both election security funding and voting requirement legislation are likely to remain active issues through the November midterm election cycle.