A More Responsive Government 2024 Grant Program

Your office is eligible to apply for a grant if:

1. You’re an office in a county, municipality, or other local jurisdiction primarily responsible for administering election activities covered by the grant;
2. Your election office is in a state that scored the highest grade on one of Responsive Gov’s nonpartisan Election Policy Progress Reports;
3. Applicable federal, state, and local law permits you to apply for and receive philanthropic funding.

The Institute for Responsive Government’s Election Policy Progress Reports grade states on whether they passed laws that made their election system more responsive and user-friendly for voters and election administrators. The States that received the highest grade awarded on Responsive Gov’s Election Policy Progress Reports (an “A” in 2021-2022 or an A+ in 2023) are:

• Colorado (A) – 2021-2022
• Delaware (A) – 2021-2022
• Michigan (A+) – 2023
• Minnesota (A+) – 2023
• New Mexico (A+) – 2023
• Nevada (A) – 2021-2022
• Washington, D.C. (A) – 2021-2022

$6 million is currently available for grantmaking through the A More Responsive Government 2024 Grant Program.

Grant awards for eligible offices are based exclusively upon the 2022 Citizen Voting Age Population in your jurisdiction, as measured by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Tiers for grant awards are as follows:

You may request a grant award in an amount less than the amount for which your office qualifies.

Grant funds may be used to cover expenditures incurred between June 1, 2024 and May 31, 2025 for the nonpartisan public purpose of planning and operationalizing secure, efficient, and accessible election administration. Examples of uses that fall within this public purpose include expenditures for the key human, physical, and technological assets that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has concluded are necessary to conduct elections:

Key Physical Components: Equipment and materials*, facilities, and records that support or provide protection.

• Voting Locations
• Technical Facilities
• Storage Facilities
• Processing Facilities
• Administrative Facilities
• Voting Hardware

*includes basic election administration supplies like pens, postage, stickers, paper, envelopes

Key Technological Components: Hardware and software components critical to supporting election mission, including computers, servers, databases, and other IT systems and assets used to fulfill one of the following functions:

• Voter Registration Systems
• Election Systems
• Election Management Systems
• Tabulation Systems
• Results Reporting
• Public Information Systems
• Electronic Poll Books
• Internal Production Software and Servers

Key Human Components: Personnel with specialized training, certification, knowledge, skills, authorities, or roles whose absence could cause undesirable consequences or hamper the election security mission.

• Strategic and Operational Positions
• Temporary/Seasonal Support Positions

If you have an expense that is not listed in these examples, but that falls within the nonpartisan public purpose of planning and operationalizing secure, efficient, and accessible election administration, please let us know in your application.

No. Responsive Gov will have no role in reviewing or approving your expenditures. In addition, Responsive Gov will have no role in the operation or administration of elections conducted by your office.

Grant funds must be used for the nonpartisan public purpose of planning and operationalizing secure, efficient, and accessible election administration. The Grant Application simply asks you to identify which category or categories of expenditures that fall within this public purpose you anticipate using grant funds to support (for example, “electronic poll books”, “temporary/seasonal support positions”, “voting locations”). But your answer to this question does not affect the amount of grant funds you are eligible for. Instead, you are eligible for a set amount of grant funds based upon your jurisdiction’s citizen voting age population.

If you receive a grant and your office later decides to allocate those grant funds towards a different category of permissible expenditures, there is no need to inform, update, or seek the input or approval of Responsive Gov before doing so, as long as those new expenditures are consistent with the nonpartisan public purpose of planning and operationalizing secure, efficient, and accessible election administration. At the end of the grant period, you will be asked to provide a brief report on how you used your grant funds to support planning and operationalizing secure, efficient, and accessible election administration. (see below).

No. This is not a grant that requires matching funds.

No, the purpose of the grant is to supplement the funds available to an election office. The grant agreement provides that grant funds cannot be used to substitute for previously budgeted funds that would otherwise be provided.

Election officials already have enough on their plate. Responsive Gov strives to make the application process for this grant program as streamlined and straightforward as possible. It should take less than an hour to gather necessary materials and complete the application.

To apply for the grant, you will need to provide:

• Office contact information (e.g., address, mailing address, phone, and email)
• The total number of active registered voters in your jurisdiction as of June 1, 2024
• The number of full-time staff in your office
• Your jurisdiction’s one-year budget allocated to elections for the fiscal year including June 1, 2024
• A copy of your jurisdiction’s total one-year budget allocated to elections for the fiscal year that includes June 1, 2024
• A short description of your intended use of grant funds
• The title and, if known, name of the person or government body authorized to sign a grant agreement

Responsive Gov will ask you only for public, non-confidential information necessary to verify your jurisdiction’s eligibility to apply for and receive a grant.

No. Responsive Gov will never ask for any non-public, confidential information about your voters, procedures, or equipment.

The person who submits the grant application must be authorized to do so and will be your office’s point of contact for the grant application. It’s up to you to determine who that should be.

You can submit your application beginning on Wednesday, August 21, 2024. The application deadline is September 13, 2024, or whenever available funds are exhausted, so we encourage you to apply as soon as possible. Applications will be considered on a rolling basis based on the time the application was submitted.

Responsive Gov will make every effort to disburse funds as quickly as possible. After you submit your application, Responsive Gov anticipates that it will take about 2 weeks to verify your eligibility. After the grant agreement is approved by Responsive Gov, the disbursement timeline will depend on your local process for approving the grant agreement.

Grant funds may be received by ACH or check.

Election officials already have enough on their plate. Responsive Gov strives to make the reporting process as streamlined and straightforward as possible. Grantees must submit a brief grant report one month after the end of the grant period identifying the nonpartisan public purposes to which they put their grant funding.

Grants are being funded by the Institute for Responsive Government, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization exempt from federal income taxation under section 501(c)(3) of the tax code. Responsive Gov will report its financial information on IRS Form 990, and will make its Form 990 available for public review after it is filed with the IRS.

The Institute for Responsive Government’s mission is to help policy makers find solutions that make government more efficient, accessible, and responsive to the needs of real human beings. Composed of industry-leading experts, including former election administrators, the Institute’s team works across disciplines to build a new approach to governance that centers efficiency, efficacy, and accessibility.

More information is available at www.responsivegov.org.

For the past two years, the Institute for Responsive Government has issued Election Policy Progress Reports. These annual reports grade all 50 states and DC on their efforts over the past year to make voting and elections more efficient, secure, and accessible. The reports consider executive and administrative action on election law, and grade each state against its peer states in terms of existing election policy.

In 2021-2022, Responsive Gov used a grading scale where an “A” grade was the highest grade that a state could be awarded. In 2023, Responsive Gov updated its grading scale so that an “A+” grade was the highest grade that a state could be awarded. In both reports, the states with the highest grades are the ones that made the most progress during that year in adopting solutions to make life easier for election officials and voters. Examples of these policies include, but are not limited to, technology upgrades to statewide voter registration databases, the use of centralized vote centers, expanded in-person early voting, secure automatic voter registration, improvements to mail ballot security such as online ballot tracking and online mail ballot request portals, protections against harassment of elections officials, procedures that prevent non-citizens from inadvertently being asked to register to vote, risk-limiting audit procedures, and expanded language access procedures.

You can review the Election Policy Progress Reports here.

The grant period for this program is from June 1, 2024, through May 31, 2025. Covered costs may be applied to the grant only during this period. To request an extension of the grant term, the jurisdiction must provide a written request, including a new requested end date, to Responsive Gov before the end date of the grant term. The local jurisdiction must receive an amendment to the Grant Agreement to expend funds beyond the grant term.

You can email Responsive Gov at grants@responsivegov.org.