In 2020, the Thurston County Auditor’s Office spent $344,860 to support elections using a grant we received from the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL). 

Grants from CTCL to other counties’ election offices are raising a lot of questions and generating disinformation. I am going to explain why we applied for the CTCL grant and what we spent the money on. 

Due to COVID, our Presidential election cost almost a million dollars more than a typical Presidential election. We needed more space, more people and personal protective equipment to ensure the smooth operation of the election. 

What exactly did we spend the CTCL Grant funds on? Here is a quick rundown of how we spent the funds: 

(click above image for a larger version)

You can dive deeper into the data here with a full accounting of how we spent those funds.  

Most of the funds went to various costs to stand up a Drive-Thru Voting Center at South Puget Sound Community College.  When Thurston County closed its doors to the public in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it became clear we needed a “plan B” to conduct our Presidential Election. Ensuring access to voter services during a public health emergency took creative thinking, planning, coordination and money. Our Drive-Thru Voting Center at South Puget Sound Community College was used for the August Primary and November General elections and was a huge success.   

In the end, there is no way we would have been able to sustain operations without the Drive Through Voting Center at South Puget Sound Community College. The results were amazing: 

• The Auditor’s Office served 3,922 voters at the Drive-Thru Voting Center between October 14 and November 3, 2020. A significant portion (34%) of these voters received service on Election Day itself.  
• The vast majority (80%) of new registrations at the Voting Center came after the eight-day cut-off.  
• 9,928 ballots were deposited in the campus drive-thru election drop box during the Presidential Election 
• A total of 13,565 customers were served either by drive-thru services or phone by election staff working at the voting center between October 14 and November 3, 2020. 
• A historic percentage of Thurston County voters (83.83%) participated in the November 2020 General Election.  

We also spent a significant portion of the funds on a backup generator at our Ballot Processing Center as recommended by the Department of Homeland Security. This has been a long-term need that we didn’t have the funds for. But now, if the power goes out at the BPC, we will be able to continue processing ballots. 

Lastly, I wanted to point out one of the smaller expenses we covered with CTCL funds. We swapped out our security cameras at the BPC to add new cameras that were capable of web-streaming. We also added a screen to an outside facing window at the BPC to ensure people could be at the BPC and see what was going on inside. Transparency is vital to elections. 

I have also heard people question the legality of private grants. Not only are private grants to governments legal, but they are commonplace. Washington State Parks (a state agency) is supported by the Washington State Parks Foundation. Library districts in Washington are funded by private charities like the Libraries of Stevens County Foundation and the Fort Vancouver Library Foundation. 

More information about how local governments can accept grants is available at this blog post from the Municipal Research and Services Center of Washington.