The nonpartisan 2026 Election Excellence Grant Program supports local election offices to enhance operations in their pursuit of election excellence.
Grant amounts between $5,000 and $50,000 are available depending on the Citizen Voting Age Population of your jurisdiction, and can be used to help election offices achieve excellence in one or more of the voluntary, nonpartisan Standards for Election Excellence that are currently available for certification.
Applications opened on Thursday, July 16, 2026 and will close December 1, 2026 or when funding is exhausted.
To be eligible, your office must:
Be a U.S. election office that administers local election activities,
Be interested in pursuing excellence in one or more of the voluntary, nonpartisan Standards for Election Excellence (and not already certified in the selected Standard(s))
Be legally permitted to apply for and accept grant funds under local, state, and federal law. Each office is responsible for determining its own eligibility under local, state, and federal law. We recommend consulting your city, county, or state attorney before applying.
What you’ll need:
Basic, publicly available information about your office, including:
Number of staff
Number of registered voters in your jurisdiction
A copy of your budget that includes July 1, 2026
Information about the Standard(s) you would use the grant to pursue and achieve:
How you plan to spend the grant
your office’s readiness to achieve the Standard and any current barriers to meeting the Standard
your office’s current approach to the Standard
what would be different if your office were meeting the Standard
what actions your office will take during the grant period to pursue and/or achieve the Standard
Applications close December 1, 2026 or when funding is exhausted.
FAQs
Program Information
The grant program advances the Alliance’s charitable and educational purpose of maintaining and supporting a hThe grant program advances the Alliance’s charitable and educational purpose of maintaining and supporting a healthy democracy by helping every election office to have healthy election operations that build and secure public trust. Pursuing and achieving excellence in the voluntary, nonpartisan Standards for Election Excellence does just that! Therefore, where legally permissible, the Alliance will award grants to election departments who need support to pursue and achieve excellence in one (or more) of the 11 Standards currently available for Certification.
The Standards were shaped by the input of hundreds of The Standards were shaped by the input of hundreds of election officials nationwide (collectively serving over 36 million voters), designers, technologists, and other experts, and they define what excellent election administration looks like in practice. Local election departments from any jurisdiction that would like to work towards achieving excellence in specific Standards and that can legally accept private contributions are welcome to submit a proposal.
Funding Information
$2.5 million is currently available for grantmaking through the nonpartisan 2026 Election Excellence Grant Program. If your election office is eligible to apply for a grant, the amount you may seek is based on the 2024 Citizen Voting Age Population (CVAP) in your jurisdiction. The grant population tiers are provided below.
250,001 or more Citizen Voting Age Population – $50,000
100,001 – 250,000 Citizen Voting Age Population – $25,000
25,001 – 100,000 Citizen Voting Age Population – $15,000
5,001 – 25,000 Citizen Voting Age Population – $10,000
5,000 or fewer Citizen Voting Age Population – $5,000
You may choose to receive less than the offered amount.
Each office may receive only one grant — however, an office may choose to use that grant to pursue and achieve excellence in more than one Standard! You must indicate in the Standard(s) you intend to pursue and achieve excellence in the application.
Matching funds are not required to apply for this grant.
The purpose of the grant is to enable offices to pursue and achieve excellence in their chosen Standard(s). While grant funds may fill government funding gaps and supplement funds available to an election office, the grant funds may not be used to substitute for previously budgeted funds that would otherwise be provided.
Application Information
The person who submits the application must be able to certify that they are authorized to do so, and will be your office’s point of contact for the grant — we leave it to you to determine who that should be! The individual submitting the application does not need to be the same person that created your office’s free online certification account.
You’ll be able to submit your grant application beginning Thursday July 16, 2026. Remember that you must have created a free, online certification account prior to submitting your application. Applications from offices that have not created a free, online certification account will not be considered. Grant applications close December 1, 2026, or when funding is exhausted.
Eligible election offices can use the funds to cover expenses incurred between July 1, 2026, and August 31, 2027, that are necessary to pursue and achieve excellence in election administration in the selected Standard(s).
We understand that excellent election administration will look different depending on a jurisdiction’s size, resources, and specific needs. (See the Alliance Standards for examples of excellence across all areas of election administration.) And we trust you to tell us what your jurisdiction needs. An office may also choose to use grant funding to pursue excellence in more than one Standard as indicated in their application.
The grant term ends August 31, 2027.
No. While election offices must create a free, online certification account to be eligible for a grant, they are not required to apply for certification in any of the Standards, including the Standards for which they received a grant.
Applications will remain open until funding is exhausted or until December 1, 2026, whichever comes first.
Contact grants2026@electionexcellence.org with any questions about the nonpartisan 2026 Election Excellence Grant Program.
Grant Distribution Information
After you submit your application, the Alliance anticipates that it will take about 2 weeks to verify your eligibility. The disbursement timeline will depend on your local process for approving the grant agreement.
You can choose to receive the grant via wire transfer, ACH, or check! Estimated receipt of funds from the time the Alliance receives a signed grant agreement and other information to make the transfer varies on how you choose to receive the disbursement:
Wire transfer: 3-4 business days
ACH: 5-9 business days
Check: 6-10 business days
All grantees are required to submit a grant report. The deadline to submit a grant report is September 30, 2027. In the report, grantees will share how the funds were spent and how those expenditures allowed them to pursue and achieve excellence in their selected Standard(s).
Supplemental Information
The U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence is a nonpartisan collaborative that is bringing together election officials, designers, technologists, and other experts to help local election departments improve operations, develop a set of shared standards and values, and obtain access to best-in-class resources to run successful elections.
Grants are from the Center for Tech and Civic Life, which is a publicly supported nonpartisan, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. The Alliance is a project of CTCL. Downloadable copies of CTCL’s form 990 for past years are available using the IRS tax exempt organization search tool. CTCL’s EIN is 47-2158694.
This year, the Alliance’s nonpartisan grant program is open to every eligible election office in any jurisdiction that is interested in pursuing and achieving excellence in one of the voluntary, nonpartisan Standards for Excellence and is permitted by law to accept private contributions.
The nonpartisan 2024 Rural and Nonmetro Election Infrastructure Grant Program was open to rural and nonmetro election departments that needed funds to administer reliable and accessible elections, and that were permitted by law to accept private contributions.
The nonpartisan COVID-19 Response Grant program was open to every eligible election department in the country, regardless of size, that needed funds to administer a safe and secure election. Since 2020, 29 states have passed legislation that prohibits or limits the acceptance of private funding for election administration. This means fewer election offices will be able to apply for and receive a philanthropic grant in 2026 than in 2024 and 2020.
Unlike 2020, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative did not fund the 2024 Rural and Nonmetro Election Infrastructure Grant Program and it is not funding the 2026 Election Excellence Grant program.
What won’t change is that the grants will continue to be nonpartisan, voluntary, open to any jurisdiction that can legally accept them, and compliant with federal, state, and local laws.
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