Vermont Secretary of State asks legislature for $1.1 million to backfill election-security shortfall, expands support for local civic media

Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanses and Deputy Lauren Hibbert told the House Appropriations Committee that federal election-security funding to Vermont has declined sharply and that the office needs $1.1 million in FY27 general-fund support to maintain core election functions.

"We are requesting 1,100,000.0," Hibbert said, describing the request as 450,000 in ongoing general-fund support and 650,000 to backfill a gap created by reductions in Help America Vote Act and related federal grants. The office estimates a revenue gap of about 728,000 tied to federal cuts and said it cannot rely on grant funding at prior levels.

Why it matters: the office uses federal grants for post-election audits, penetration testing, clerk training and two-factor authentication for its election-management system. Hibbert said the security grant balance is roughly 4.9 million but that annual federal support has dropped from about 1,000,000 historically to 272,000 in 2025. "There is not" evidence of widespread mail-ballot fraud in Vermont, Hanses said in response to a committee question about national claims; she and Hibbert stressed the importance of maintaining technical and procedural safeguards to preserve public trust.

The office warned that, without additional funding, election infrastructure and training that local clerks depend on could be at risk. Hibbert told the committee that many election-related expenses are non-discretionary: ballot preparation, clerk training, candidate filings and maintenance of the voter-portal and election-management systems.

The presentation also covered broader Secretary of State priorities. Office officials highlighted business-services activity (about 130,000 filings in FY25 and nearly 15,000 new business formations), records and archives workloads (including a single public-records release exceeding 7,000 pages), and the Safe at Home address-confidentiality program (serving about 204 participants).

Democracy-media grants: Hanses asked the committee to consider increasing support for local media and civic access. The office said it supports an increase for the Vermont Access Network (VAN) from about 1.35 million last year to 1.8 million and a new 90,000 request for 10 community radio stations, and noted a civic-journalism awards program that distributed 16 small grants via the Vermont Community Foundation.

What happens next: the committee will weigh the FY27 budget and determine whether to include the 1.1 million request and the democracy-media funding increases in its recommendation to the full legislature.