If 2020 had been a typical election year, a County Clerk would have asked a team of CTCL staff to huddle up in a rural county courthouse to help the Clerk build a new election website. A state association of election officials would have invited us to their annual summer conference to lead a session on a topic like poll worker management or election cybersecurity best practices. If we were lucky, there would have been a lip sync contest.

But this hasn’t been a typical election year for us, or for election officials.

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact every aspect of American civic life, especially the administration of safe elections. While experts estimate it will take ~$4 billion in funding to successfully administer 2020 elections, Congress has allocated $400 million to date. Sadly, election officials are not only facing unprecedented operational and budget challenges in 2020, but they are also dealing with unprecedented personal attacks and death threats that are prompting some election officials to step down.

Election officials make democracy happen. Through our work at the Center for Tech and Civic Life, we are grateful to witness the incredible public service of our country’s election official’s year round.

And this year we’ve seen election offices already move mountains to provide a safe, secure, and inclusive process for voters. They are offering drive-up voting, applying the latest public health guidelines to provide safe in-person voting options, and partnering with libraries to repurpose book drops into ballot dropboxes. Election officials are rising to the occasion, and now it’s our turn.

Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg have committed $250M to CTCL, which we will regrant to local election jurisdictions across the country to help ensure that they have the staffing, training, and equipment necessary so that this November every eligible voter can participate in a safe and timely way and have their vote counted.

We all depend on election officials to provide safe and secure voting options to the public. The expansion of our COVID-19 Response Grant program provides our country’s election officials and poll workers with the critical resources they need to safely serve every voter.

This is an open call to every local election office in the country. If you are interested in receiving grant funds, learn more and apply for a grant.

Have questions about implementing public health measures, scaling absentee ballot processing, or educating voters? Visit CTCL’s new Election Resources for Safe Elections website, a collection of free and easy to use resources devoted to helping you navigate today’s election challenges.