The Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), a non-partisan organization backed by Republicans, Democrats, and non-partisan officials, grew rapidly in 2020 in response to an exceptionally challenging U.S. election year when a global pandemic and disinformation campaign threatened people’s ability to participate in the democratic process. In response, our country’s state and local election officials alongside pro-democracy organizations including foundations, corporations, and nonprofits, came together to overcome these challenges. As a result, 2020 was the most secure election in U.S. history and voter turnout soared.

CTCL played a critical role in deploying various strategies to support election officials and the voting public in 2020. In addition to providing timely and relevant online training as well as accurate and trustworthy information to millions of voters, CTCL distributed nearly $350 million in grants to local election departments to administer safe elections.

CTCL is a publicly supported 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. We’re proud to have a healthy mix of financial support from foundations, individual donors, and earned revenue.

As we have in past years, we are publishing CTCL’s 990s following CTCL’s usual procedure and timeline. While we do, we’d also like to say a final word about the 2020 COVID-19 Response Grant Program. We’ve previously shared the list of jurisdictions that received funding, how program funds were used, and shared the stories of local election officials. The publishing of our 990s marks the final release of information about the grant program.

With generous philanthropic funding, CTCL announced the COVID-19 Response Grant program available to all U.S. local election offices responsible for administering election activities covered by the grant program were eligible to apply for funds. Once applicants were verified as legitimate, they were approved for grant funds which had to be used exclusively for the public purpose of planning and operationalizing safe and secure election administration.

Basics About the COVID-19 Grant Response Program

Grants were distributed to nearly 2,500 U.S. election departments spanning 47 states. The minimum CTCL COVID-19 Response Grant amount was $5,000, which was awarded to smaller localities across the country. The largest grant was awarded to New York City, totaling just over $19 million. Over half of all grants nationwide went to election departments that serve fewer than 25,000 registered voters. The grant program was optional, so the list of grantees is a reflection of those election departments that decided to opt-in. Additionally, some jurisdictions may have returned some or all of their grants as unspent.

Election administration is different from community to community, and what election departments needed to make ends meet in 2020 reflected those local differences.

The COVID-19 Response Grant program came into place because Congress did not fully fund local election departments during the pandemic. The goal of the program was to ensure election officials had the resources they needed to conduct safe, secure elections for their community.

There were no partisan questions in the grant applications. CTCL COVID-19 Response grant funding decisions were not made on a partisan basis. As demonstrated by the jurisdictions across the political spectrum that received money, partisan considerations played no role in the availability or awarding of funding.

Regardless of the COVID-19 pandemic, election administration in the United States provides radically different service levels to different voters depending solely on where they live. An election department in an impoverished jurisdiction—funded by that impoverished jurisdiction’s tax revenue—will usually have fewer voting locations, worse communication to voters, and fewer staff members.

Needs differed vastly from election department to election department based on a variety of factors, including the jurisdiction size, how jurisdictions changed their voting program during the pandemic, and their previous funding levels. CTCL COVID-19 Response grants were available to meet those needs wherever they existed. As their program needs changed during the pandemic, many larger urban areas, for example, required capital-intense investments to count a large volume of absentee and mail ballots in a short period of time, tasks that can often be done at lower cost with less equipment (sometimes even by hand) in the smallest jurisdictions.

While State and Federal Courts Continue to Reject Challenges to the CTCL COVID-19 Response Grant Program, Frivolous Challenges Did Stop Some Jurisdictions from Pursuing Grants

As part of a disinformation campaign to undermine voter confidence, more than a dozen frivolous lawsuits were filed to smear the CTCL COVID-19 Response Grants program. Every judge — conservative, liberal, and two Republican-appointed Supreme Court Justices — who heard these challenges rejected them, with one judge issuing a strongly-worded opinion that in one case labeled these challenges a “conspiracy theory.”

Weeks before CTCL published its 990s, the Wisconsin Elections Commission became the latest bipartisan body to reject challenges to the grant program, writing, “The Commission finds that the Complaint does not raise probable cause to believe that a violation of law or abuse of discretion has occurred. All claims are hereby dismissed.”

In the United States District Court for the District of Colorado, Magistrate Judge N. Reid Neureiter ordered sanctions against a pair of attorneys who filed a frivolous challenge to the grant program, stating their lawsuit “is one enormous conspiracy theory.” The court ordered the attorneys to pay the defense counsel’s legal fees. In the opinion, the judge noted:

• “In short, this was no slip-and-fall at the local grocery store. Albeit disorganized and fantastical, the complaint’s allegations are extraordinarily serious and, if accepted as true by large numbers of people, are the stuff of which violent insurrections are made.”
• “The lawsuit put into or repeated into the public record highly inflammatory and damaging allegations that could have put individuals’ safety in danger. Doing so without a valid legal basis or serious independent personal investigation into the facts was the height of recklessness.”
• “Plaintiffs’ counsel insisted at oral argument that they genuinely believe the factual allegations and legal contentions in the complaint, but ‘belief’ alone cannot form the foundation for a lawsuit. An ‘empty-head’ but ‘pure-heart’ is no justification for patently frivolous arguments or factual assertions.”

The Texas Voters Alliance v. Dallas County, No. 4:20-cv-00775 was filed in Federal District Court in the Eastern District of Texas. The Judge (who noted at the hearing that he was a Republican) denied the plaintiffs’ request for relief because they lacked standing and failed to prove any harm from the grant program. The Court’s opinion includes:

• “Here, the CTCL grants encourage every voter to participate, not solely the ones with which Plaintiffs agree. This widespread encouragement furthers CTCL’s intended purpose to facilitate a safe and efficient voting experience in a pandemic. CTCL does not favor or disfavor any demographic group of voters; every single county in Texas could have applied and received a minimum of $5,000. Indeed, 117 counties did just that. As such, Plaintiffs do not claim any irreparable harm.”
• “Plaintiffs’ assertions are like throwing a breadcrumb trail on a windy, north Texas afternoon.”
• “The Court sees no way to differentiate the supposedly partisan hand sanitizer from the impartial.”

In Federal District Court, for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, the Penn. Voters Alliance v. Centre Cnty., No. 4:20-cv-01761 was filed and dismissed. The Court stated:

• “CTCL provides grant funds to any local election office that applies, and the final grant is calculated using nonpartisan criteria. CTCL reports that over 1,100 local election administrators across the country have applied for CTCL grants, including eighteen counties within Pennsylvania, as well as the Pennsylvania Department of State. Of these eighteen counties, eleven voted for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, ‘and five did so by more than a two-to-one margin.’”
• “Plaintiffs make sweeping constitutional claims. But there is less to this case than meets the eye. That is because, despite their assertions, Plaintiffs cannot satisfy the threshold standing requirement of Article III. The Court thus concludes that it cannot reach the merits of Plaintiffs’ motion because they lack standing.”

In the summer of 2022, a unanimous, bipartisan vote by the Federal Election Commission rejected fantastical claims about the grants program. The regulator rejected those claims in 6-0 votes — a rare show of unanimity by the commissioners, who are split evenly by party.

While challenges have all been soundly rejected, they have not been without impact. These frivolous legal challenges meant that some jurisdictions left funds on the table. Jurisdictions in Louisiana alone turned their back on $7.8 million in election funding, even as some parishes were struggling to run elections in the wake of Hurricane Laura, a Category 4 hurricane with winds that exceeded more than 150 mph.

How the Smallest Jurisdictions Used the COVID-19 Response Grants to run Safe, Inclusive Elections During the Pandemic

The minimum CTCL COVID-19 Response Grant amount was $5,000 which was awarded to smaller localities across the country. Like many larger jurisdictions, these jurisdictions often suffered from years of underinvestment. Also, like many larger jurisdictions, they faced the strain of managing high turnout during the pandemic — and it is clear from their stories that high turnout in a small jurisdiction still creates pressures and stress on the local election infrastructure.

Many local election officials in the smallest jurisdictions reported using grants on items like basic PPE and hazard pay. Here are some of the most innovative examples of how local election officials who received our minimum grant amount told us they used the additional funding. What’s clear from their stories is that they were just as creative — if not more so — than those running elections in larger jurisdictions, and they shared a commitment to delivering safe and inclusive elections.

“I rented a wedding-style tent and moved the entire polling place outside. Voters were able to drive up to the entrance checklist station, receive their ballot, vote in their car, and drive to the exit checklist station to drop off their ballot.”

“We had a 8 ft by 8 ft building constructed, with a sliding window to act as a drive thru. Persons with COVID, or waiting for COVID results, or immunocompromised persons were able to safely vote without infecting others by coming inside. The system worked out very well, and we had 55 people use the drive thru voting and also others used it to drop off their absentee ballots.”

“I was able to purchase 3 tabulators. [The town] was using hand crank ballots boxes that were manufactured in the early 1900″s and therefore not able to find parts to repair them. One was held together with duct tape. They will be donated to our historical society.”

“I was comfortable knowing I had additional funding to offer trainings to my very nervous election staff, I feel happiness that I can now include hazard pay for my election workers and staff.”

“We added a sidewalk to the back door so voter traffic would be one way. in one door out the other to help people stay apart.”

“We are a paper ballot community. My Assistant updated a how to count ballots training manual. We had twenty two sets of counters, they all need to be on the same page. Usually it was in person but now it had to be emailed.”

“Our Township had drive up voting in our Town machine shed so that the voters did not have to get out of their vehicles. This protected the election workers and the voters.”

“The Town Clerk’s office processed and issued 2,596 absentee ballots. The office includes 1 clerk and 1 full time assistant so this was a large undertaking. In addition, voter turnout in town was 89.86% which was a record turnout. Because we were able to hire the additional poll workers, Election Day ran very smoothly.”

“With the grant funds that we were awarded, I was able to hire a former Town Clerk to assist with the absentee balloting process for the 30-days prior to Election Day. Because we had the extra help we were able to issue, receive and process a record breaking number of absentee ballots with extreme efficiency.”

“I’m all about helping the handicapped voter on election day. I purchased an Express Vote Handicapped machine and an ADA compliant Voting Booth.”

“I was able to implement Student Election Clerks. This is something I definitely will continue for future elections. The learning experience and feedback from the students was phenomenal!”

“We were able to purchase VOTE HERE SIGNS and I VOTED stickers. We are a very poor county and these items have never been an option.”

Our Lesson from 2020: Election Administration Should Be Fully Funded. We’re Looking at You, Congress.

CTCL believes that election administration should be fully funded by federal, state, and local governments across the country, and the quality of election administration each voter receives should not depend on the tax base or size of their county.

Philanthropy helped alleviate an emergency in 2020, and in “normal years” it can help election offices build capacity, streamline processes, and make capital investments. But philanthropy is no substitute for predictable government funding.

CTCL will continue to make the case for predictable government funding through the Election Infrastructure Initiative. We’re committed to securing adequate support for election administration in every jurisdiction across the country, whether it’s a rural township with 600 voters or a city with 6 million.

CTCL IRS 990 Forms

This form covers activity from Feb. 1, 2020 to Jan. 31, 2021. A list of prior-year forms and contributors can be found here.

CTCL 2020 990 (FY Feb 2020 – Jan 2021)