Voter turnout in local elections is significantly lower than for national elections.

Voter turnout reached 66% in 2020—the highest since 1908—and 64% in 2024, tied for second-highest with 1960. In 2024, Trump benefited from higher turnout among his prior voters and new voters.

Local governments allocate 39% of their spending to K-12 education, while states allocate less than 1% directly—although much of local education funding actually comes from state and federal grants to local communities. States instead allocate their budgets to public welfare and health programs (45%) and higher education (15%).

Local governments collect about $886B each year to support education, infrastructure, and public health. Roughly three-quarters of this funding comes from property taxes, with the rest sourced from sales, excise, and income taxes.

This article breaks down demographic data to show what it means for American elections. According to the latest US Census, the US is growing increasingly diverse. As the population becomes more diverse, so does the electorate. Analyzing the...

Federal grants support a large portion of state and local budgets, funding Medicaid, infrastructure, education, and housing. In FY 2024, these transfers made up about 16% of total federal spending.

Analysts reported that the 2022 midterms featured the lowest share of competitive congressional districts since 1970, reflecting how modern redistricting has increasingly produced safe seats and reduced voter choice.

What’s actually at stake when someone casts their vote in a US election? CNN’s “Election 101” podcast series provides ten episodes summarizing some of the basics of democratic elections. The ins and outs of voting are highlighted in 15-minute episodes on voter registration and voting by mail. Additional segments highlight how the electoral system works, how ballots are counted, the Electoral College, why it takes so long to get election results, and more.

Public K-12 schools spent around $857B in 2024, averaging $17,277 per student. State and local sources shouldered nearly 90% of costs, and federal funds provided about $2,400 per pupil.

As of 2021, 44% of private schools enrolled fewer than 300 students. By comparison, over 60% of public schools enroll more than 500 students.

From large municipal utilities to small rural systems, local governments are tasked with providing clean water to almost every American community. The US operates over 148,000 public water systems.

When a city needs to build a school, a road, or a water treatment plant, it usually issues a municipal bond—borrowing money from investors to be paid back over time. The market for these bonds now exceeds $4T.

Counties, municipalities, townships, special districts, and school districts are each created for a different purpose, operating under different rules, and answerable to the state in different ways. Special districts, the least known of the group, are created for specific purposes, such as transit or fire protection.

A 2023 nationwide Pew survey found that 56% of K–12 teachers report discussing race or racial inequality in class, while only 29% mention LGBTQ topics. Many teachers (41%) say these debates have negatively impacted their work.

In ranked-choice voting, voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no one wins a majority, the lowest-ranked candidate is eliminated, and their votes are reassigned until a candidate surpasses 50%, avoiding separate runoff elections.

Local governments finance most of the costs for police in the US. Total state and local criminal justice spending—covering police, courts, and corrections—reaches hundreds of billions of dollars annually.

Ever wonder how much of each group make up the American voting bloc? Find raw data from the '16 and '18 elections broken out by a variety of factors (click on "validated voters database" link).

The Programme for International Student Assessment, administered every three years by the OECD to 15-year-olds, scores US students below the OECD average in math (465 vs. 472) and only slightly above average in science (499 vs. 485). These figures place US pupils in the lower half of developed nations.

As of 2022, there were a reported total of 90,837 local government units across the US. Illinois had the highest number with 6,930, followed by Texas with 5,533. Explore all the data from the 2022 Census of Governments, which takes place every five years.

Because presidents are elected through the Electoral College rather than a national vote, candidates can win while receiving fewer votes nationwide. John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump (2016) each won the presidency while losing the nationwide popular vote.

In 2019, the federal government covered about one-sixth of the $79B spent on public transit. States and localities make up the rest. About 85% of all transit trips are taken by bus or heavy rail, and nearly 4 in 10 US transit trips occur in the New York City metro area.

The USA has seen some crazy elections. Election fraud is vanishingly rare now, but here are the craziest cases of election fraud in U.S. history.

Unlike the federal government or the states, local governments have no constitutional standing—they exist only because state law allows them to. A state legislature can redraw a city's boundaries, strip its powers, or dissolve it entirely.

By early 2021, approximately 76% of private schools offered some form of in-person learning compared with 38% of public schools.

Since 1965, federal oversight has blocked thousands of state-level voting changes—including redistricting plans—by requiring approval for measures that could affect minority representation, a process scaled back by the Supreme Court in 2013.

Voucher programs direct public K–12 funding to families in the form of tuition grants for private schools and are typically targeted to low-income or special-needs students.

Federal, state, and local governments share responsibility for funding public services. Education, roads, and social programs are funded through a complicated mix of taxes and intergovernmental transfers.

The Department of Education contributes about 8% of K-12 funding and administers targeted grants, civil‑rights enforcement, research, and data collection. Crucially, it is legally prohibited from directing curriculum, personnel decisions, or instructional content, leaving that control to states and districts.

In fiscal year 2022, nearly 90% of federal defendants pleaded guilty, and another 8% had their cases dismissed. This means just 2% went to trial at all, making a trial by jury a rare outcome in the modern federal court system.

A joint analysis from the Brennan Center and Verified Voting finds that replacing aging voting equipment will cost hundreds of millions of dollars.