You are given two reports by the government agency.  

Report 1:
Election administration attracted significant attention in 2000, when issues with the vote count delayed the results of the presidential race. Administrative issues have also been reported in subsequent election cycles. For example, issues with voter registration were reported in multiple states in 2016 and 2018. Some responses to such reports focus on the rules of elections. The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA; P.L. 107-252 ; 116 Stat. 1666), for example, requires states to establish a uniform standard of what counts as a vote for each voting system they use (52 U.S.C. §21081(a)(6)), and bills have been introduced in recent Congresses to change how voter registration is handled. Other responses focus on the systems that apply election rules. In the United States, that typically means state and local systems. The administration of elections in the United States is highly decentralized. Elections are primarily administered by thousands of state and local systems rather than a single, unified national system. Understanding how those state and local systems work may be relevant to Congress for at least two reasons. First, the way state and local election systems work can affect how well federal action on election administration serves its intended purposes. Most federal action on election administration is carried out by state and local election systems. Interactions between the workings of those systems and federal actions can help determine how effective the federal actions are at achieving their objectives. Second, Congress can require or encourage changes to the way state and local election systems work. Congress has a number of tools for influencing election administration policy. The use of these tools can—either intentionally or unintentionally—affect the workings of the state and local systems that administer federal elections. This report is intended to help Congress understand how state and local election systems work and how their workings might relate to federal activity on election administration. It starts by describing the distribution of election administration duties at the state and local levels and the structures of the state and local systems that conduct elections. It then uses examples from past federal action on election administration to illustrate some of the ways the duties and structures of state and local election systems interact with federal activity. It closes by introducing some considerations that may be relevant to Members interested in election administration. This report focuses on the administration of federal elections in the states by executive and legislative branches of state and local government. Much of the discussion applies to nonfederal as well as federal elections, but the report is intended explicitly to address only federal elections. The report also does not cover the federal role in administering federal elections, election administration in the U.S. territories, the role of law enforcement and the courts in election administration, or issues of constitutional or legal interpretation. The typical federal election process has three main parts: voter registration, vote casting, and vote counting. This report focuses on those three parts of the process rather than on other aspects of campaigns and elections, such as campaign finance and redistricting. Finally, the way federal elections are administered varies between and within states. A full accounting of the variations is beyond the scope of this report. Instead, the report describes general patterns and illustrates them with examples. Examples appear in text boxes like the box below, which describes the role the text boxes play in the report in more detail. Election administration involves making decisions about the rules of elections, such as whether voters should be able to register online, whether they should be required to show photo identification at the polls, and whether election results should be audited. It also involves conducting elections in accordance with those decisions and paying for the activities and resources required to conduct them. These three election administration duties can be described as policymaking, implementation, and funding. This section describes some common patterns in the distribution of these duties at the state and local levels. In the U.S. system, states generally play the primary decisionmaking role in election administration. State legislatures, with input from their governors, can make state laws about the administration of elections and make or initiate election administration amendments to their state constitutions. State laws and constitutions can also delegate or defer responsibility for decisions about the administration of elections to other state or local officials and to voters. The U.S. Constitution also provides for a federal role with respect to decisionmaking about elections, and Congress has exercised such powers in a number of instances. For more information about federal laws governing the state and local conduct of federal elections, see the Appendix . Box 1 uses examples from voter registration to illustrate a number of these approaches to policymaking. It starts with a discussion of a registration policy enacted by the federal government and then describes an adjustment to the policy made, respectively, by a state legislature on the recommendation of a state executive branch official, by state executive branch officials, and by voters. State and local officials may be granted decisionmaking authority explicitly by a variety of constitutional provisions, laws, charters, ordinances, and regulations at multiple levels of government. They may also be left discretion over policy details that are not specified in legislative or regulatory text. For example, states may set out general guidelines for voting technology and ballot design but leave decisions about exactly which machines to buy or how to lay out ballots to local officials. Voters have a say in election administration measures that are referred to the ballot by their state legislatures. Some states also offer citizen initiatives or popular referendums, which voters can use to propose their own state election administration statutes or state constitutional amendments or to repeal or affirm election administration laws adopted by their state legislatures. Table 1 lists the citizen initiative and popular referendum options available to voters in states that offer such mechanisms, as presented by the Initiative & Referendum Institute at the University of Southern California in January 2019. Box 2 uses examples from the November 2018 election to illustrate how states and voters have used ballot measures to make election administration policy. It describes a statewide proposal to enact automatic voter registration in Nevada that was initiated by citizens, and a statewide proposal to enact a voter ID requirement in North Carolina that was referred to the ballot by the state legislature. Early U.S. elections were conducted almost entirely locally. Some states have departed from that tradition. For example, in Alaska, the state conducts elections above the borough level, and, in Delaware, all elections are conducted by the state. Congress has also shifted some responsibility for conducting elections to the state level. For example, the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA; P.L. 99-410 ; 100 Stat. 924) requires states to designate a single state office to provide absent uniformed services and overseas voters with information about voter registration and absentee voting (52 U.S.C. §20302(b)). The NVRA requires states to designate a chief state election official to coordinate state responsibilities under the act (52 U.S.C. §20509), and HAVA requires chief state election officials to implement statewide voter registration lists and oversee development of plans for use of federal election administration funding (52 U.S.C. §21083(a)(1)(A); 52 U.S.C. §21005(a)). However, the day-to-day implementation of election administration policy is still mostly handled by localities. For example, localities typically add eligible voters to the voter rolls; design and print ballots; recruit and train poll workers; select and prepare polling places; store and transport voting equipment; and count, canvass, and report election results. The level of locality primarily responsible for conducting elections is typically the county, but there are some exceptions. The New England states, which have a strong tradition of township government, tend to assign primary responsibility to municipalities. Some states also split implementation duties between counties and municipalities. Responsibility for implementing election administration policy may also be divided between offices or agencies at the same level of local government. For example, according to one scholarly source, as of 2015, localities in about one-third of states split responsibility for conducting elections between two or more offices or agencies. Table 2 lists the states identified by those scholars. Election administration involves both intermittent and ongoing costs. Intermittent costs include irregular expenses like the costs of acquiring voting equipment. Ongoing costs include expenses that are linked to and recur with each individual election, such as the costs of printing ballots, paying poll workers, and transporting voting equipment to polling places, as well as expenses that are incurred whether or not there is an election, such as the costs of training election officials, maintaining voter registration lists, and providing IT support for online voter registration systems. The federal government does not supply ongoing funding to states and localities to conduct elections. To date, Congress has authorized significant federal funding for state and local election administration in one bill: HAVA. HAVA authorized $3.65 billion for three main types of formula-based payments to states as well as additional funding for a number of smaller grant and payment programs (52 U.S.C. §§20901-20906; 52 U.S.C. §§21001-21072). Congress appropriated most of the $3.65 billion for the three types of formula-based payments between FY2003 and FY2010 and appropriated an additional $380 million in March 2018. That means states and localities are responsible for most of the costs of conducting federal elections. Localities typically assume primary responsibility for those costs, with states contributing to varying degrees. All states have supplied or committed to supplying matching funds as required to receive federal HAVA funds (52 U.S.C. §21003(b)(5)(a)). All states but North Dakota, which does not have voter registration, have also contributed to establishing and maintaining the statewide voter registration lists required by HAVA (52 U.S.C. §21083(a)). State contributions to other costs vary. Many states used HAVA funding to help replace or update voting technology, and some have put additional money from state coffers toward those expenses. Table 3 lists state contributions to the costs of acquiring voting equipment, as reported by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) in 2018. Table 4 provides information from the same report about states' contributions to the costs of maintaining and operating voting equipment. As GAO uses the terms in the survey, operation costs "include things such as poll worker labor to set up equipment, postage for mailing absentee or vote-by-mail ballots, paper and printing supplies for paper ballots or voter-verified paper trails, and electricity to operate equipment during elections." Maintenance costs "include things such as labor to conduct maintenance between elections of any equipment hardware and software as well as any required parts." Some states cover or contribute to the costs of training local election officials, and some share election-specific costs, such as printing ballots and transporting voting equipment. Box 3 uses five examples of cost-sharing arrangements for election-specific costs of federal elections to illustrate the range of approaches states have taken to such arrangements. The structures of the state and local systems that conduct federal elections vary both between and within states. Common variations include differences related to the leadership of the election system; relationship between local election officials and the state; and population size and density of the jurisdiction served by the system. This section describes these structural variations. The state and local election systems that conduct federal elections may be led by an individual, such as the state secretary of state or a town or county clerk; a group, such as a state elections commission or a county board of elections; or a combination of individuals or groups, such as a state secretary of state and state board of elections, or a city clerk and city registrar of voters. Election system leadership may be chosen by voters or appointed by an authority such as the governor or state legislature. The selection method—and the leaders themselves—may be partisan, bipartisan, or nonpartisan. Federal law requires states to designate a chief election official to carry out certain tasks. Table 5 lists the titles of chief state election officials, as reported to CRS by the EAC, and the methods of selecting them, as listed by the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) and the National Association of State Legislatures (NCSL). The leadership types and selection methods of local election systems may vary within a state. Box 4 uses examples from Florida and Wisconsin to illustrate such variations. It describes the different causes of variation in the two states and a recent change in Florida to a more uniform selection process. The leadership structures of both state and local systems can also change over time. Box 5 uses the two states from Box 4 to illustrate the types of changes states might make, how they might make them, and how frequently they might make them. It describes one change that was approved by voters as a ballot measure and a number of others that were enacted legislatively. Another way in which the structures of election systems can vary is in the relationship between local election officials and the state. Some local election officials operate largely independently, whereas others rely on state officials or resources for some, most, or all basic functions. For example, as noted in " Funding ," states may provide some or all of the training for local election officials. As described in more detail in " Jurisdiction Size and Density ," local election officials who serve smaller or more rural jurisdictions may also depend on their states to provide specialized expertise, such as legal or technical know-how. States also have varying types and degrees of influence over local election officials. Choices about other structural features, such as the method used to select the leadership of local election systems, can shape this aspect of the state-local relationship. For example, in some states, state officials appoint and can remove local election officials. State officials in other states may have other options for influencing local officials. For example, state officials may have the power to initiate legal action against local officials, to provide or withhold funding for local election administration, or to certify and decertify voting systems. However, they tend to have less control over how local officials perform their election administration duties than state officials with appointment and removal authority. As described in more detail in " Compliance with Federal Requirements ," this dynamic may be especially pronounced for local officials who are popularly elected. Such officials are accountable primarily to voters rather than to the state. Other structural variations between election systems derive from differences in the population size and density of the jurisdictions they serve. Some election jurisdictions reported serving fewer than 100 eligible registered voters in the 2016 election, for example, whereas Los Angeles County reported serving 6.8 million. The eligible registered voters in that county alone reportedly outnumbered the eligible registrants in each of 40 other states. Election jurisdictions also differ in population density. For example, Los Angeles County is an urban center, and many small jurisdictions are rural. Jurisdictions with different population sizes and densities have different election administration advantages and face different administrative challenges. For example, voter registration list maintenance is typically more straightforward in small jurisdictions because their lists are shorter and election officials are more likely to know registrants personally. Meanwhile, large jurisdictions tend to have larger tax bases and more resources. Those differences between jurisdictions may be reflected in the internal structures of the election systems that serve them. One example of such a structural difference is the size and specialization of the system's staff. Larger jurisdictions, which typically have more personnel, may have much of the specialized expertise they need in-house. Smaller jurisdictions, which may have only one part-time employee dedicated to election administration, are more likely to rely on outside expertise. For example, according to law professors Steven F. Huefner, Daniel P. Tokaji, and Edward B. Foley, smaller jurisdictions in Illinois have looked to state attorneys for election law expertise and to voting equipment vendors for technical support. Another type of difference related to jurisdiction size and density is variation in the allocation of system resources. A study prepared for the U.S. Election Assistance Commission in 2013 found that election officials in rural jurisdictions were more likely than their urban counterparts to use paid print advertising for voter outreach. Election officials in urban jurisdictions were more likely to use websites and social media. Small jurisdictions may also allocate a larger share of their resources to meeting state and federal requirements than larger jurisdictions because there are often fixed start-up costs to required changes, and smaller jurisdictions may be less equipped to capitalize on economies of scale. For example, political scientists Heather M. Creek and Kimberly A. Karnes report, "There is a minimum cost to the acquisition and maintenance of voting technology that applies whether the district is purchasing 5 or 500 machines." The duties and structures of state and local election systems can affect the implementation of federal election administration laws. Perhaps as a result, Congress has specified how states and localities should distribute certain election administration duties and structure certain elements of their election systems. Changes to the duties and structures of state and local election systems have sometimes also been side effects of other federal activity on election administration. This section provides examples of ways in which the distribution of election administration duties at the state and local levels and the structures of state and local election systems can affect the implementation of federal election administration law. These examples include federal efforts to affect the administration of elections through (1) requirements, (2) funding, and (3) information sharing. Congress can use requirements to regulate how states and localities administer certain aspects of federal elections. How well such requirements serve their intended purposes depends in part on how closely states and localities comply with them. How closely states and localities comply with federal requirements may, in turn, be affected by the duties and structures of the state and local election systems that implement them. For example, UOCAVA assigns responsibility for complying with some of its requirements to the states (52 U.S.C. §20302), but the tasks required for compliance are often handled by local officials. One scholar, law professor Justin Weinstein-Tull, indicates that this means that the officials who are held liable for compliance with UOCAVA requirements may differ from the officials who take or fail to take the actions needed to comply. Box 6 provides an illustration of this phenomenon as reported by state officials in Alabama. The federal government can provide funding for state and local election administration, which may be conditional on the adoption of certain election administration policies or practices. How well such funding serves its intended purposes may depend in part on how timely it is and how well-tailored it is to its objectives. Duties and structures of state and local election systems may affect how quickly federal funding is claimed and used and how well the uses to which it is put serve federal objectives. For example, HAVA has authorized payments to states to meet its requirements (52 U.S.C. §21007). It has directed those payments to be disbursed to states (52 U.S.C. §21001(a)) and charged chief state election officials with overseeing decisions about how to spend them (52 U.S.C. §21005(a)). State election officials run federal elections in some states, but those states are the exception. As noted in " Implementation " and " Funding ," most states assign election administration implementation and funding duties to local officials. That means that the officials who receive HAVA funding and are charged with overseeing decisions about how to use it often differ from the officials who conduct and pay for the activities and resources it is intended to fund. That has had at least two reported consequences. First, in some cases, it has reportedly delayed access to or use of some HAVA funds. Directing HAVA funding to states introduces opportunities for state-level delays, such as decisions by state officials to wait to claim the funds or requirements in state law to obtain approval to do so. Second, some local officials have stated the view that their states' shares of HAVA funding were not put to what they considered the areas of greatest need. Box 7 provides examples of such consequences as described by state and local officials in Nevada, Minnesota, and Virginia. Congress can require or facilitate information sharing with states and localities by federal agencies. As with funding, the effectiveness of federal information sharing may depend in part on how timely it is. How quickly federal agencies share information with the appropriate state and local officials may be affected by the distribution of election administration duties at the state and federal levels. Box 8 provides an example of such an effect reported by NASS. Past federal action has resulted in both intentional and unintentional changes to state and local election systems. Some federal laws include provisions that are specifically designed to establish certain responsibilities for election administration at the state level. For example, the NVRA requires states to designate chief state election officials to coordinate state responsibilities under the act (52 U.S.C. §20509), and HAVA charges chief state election officials with implementing a statewide voter registration system (52 U.S.C. §21083(a)(1)(A)). Federal regulation has reportedly also had the side effect of shifting the distribution of other election administration duties. For example, the agency-based registration requirements in the NVRA divide voter registration responsibilities between traditional election offices and offices that had not historically been involved in election administration, such as motor vehicle and public assistance agencies (52 U.S.C. §20504; 52 U.S.C. §20506). According to Hale, Montjoy, and Brown, "the need to pass implementing legislation and the complexity of legal and technical requirements" in federal laws such as HAVA and the NVRA has also "led many states to grant new or additional rule-making power" to their chief state election officials. Congress has considered legislation—some of which has been enacted and some of which has not—that would change election rules or the state and local systems that implement them. The interactions between the duties and structures of state and local election systems and past federal actions suggest some considerations that may be relevant to future congressional consideration of proposals that would affect the administration of federal elections. The following questions may be of interest to Members as they consider making changes to election administration or maintaining current rules and structures: How would any proposed change interact with the duties and structures of state and local election systems? Would the duties and structures of state and local election systems make a proposed change difficult to implement? Would the design of a proposed change need to be adjusted to accommodate variations between or within states? Which of the policy tools available to Congress is best suited to achieving the purpose of a proposed change? For example, would it be more effective to advance a proposed change with a federal requirement, or incentivize it via federal funding? How might the nature of the state and local system inform a proposed change? For example, if it is a federal requirement, who is charged with compliance; who is responsible for the tasks required for compliance; and what is the relationship between the two? If it is federal funding, to whom should it be distributed, and who should be involved in making decisions about how to use it? Would a proposed change have the effect, either intentionally or unintentionally, of altering the duties or structures of state or local election systems? If so, what are the advantages and disadvantages of such changes? Are there complications with a proposed change that are not specifically related to election administration? For example, could there be federalism-related issues with intervening in the relationships between states and their political subdivisions? 

 

 Report 2:
Grade-crossing safety has improved significantly since 1975, but since 2009, the number of crashes and fatalities at grade crossings has plateaued (see fig. 1). The yearly number of grade-crossing crashes declined from 12,126 in 1975 to 2,117 in 2017. In that time frame, fatalities dropped from 917 to 273. The most significant reductions in grade-crossing crashes and fatalities were achieved from 1975 to 1985, when states closed or improved the most dangerous crossings. Grade- crossing safety continued to improve until the mid-2000s, though at a slower rate. Since 2009, the number of grade-crossing crashes and fatalities remains at around 2,100 crashes and 250 fatalities a year. These fatalities typically make up less than one percent of all highway- related fatalities. The decrease in crashes and fatalities occurred as the volume of train and highway traffic generally increased over the years. FRA expects the traffic volumes to continue to increase and has expressed concern that grade-crossing crashes and fatalities may also increase. As a set-aside portion of FHWA’s much larger Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP), the Section 130 Program provides funds to state DOTs for the elimination of hazards at highway-rail grade crossings. States determine what improvements need to be made at grade crossings. FHWA has oversight responsibilities regarding the use of federal funds as part of its administration of federal-aid highway programs and funding, including HSIP funds. FHWA uses a statutory formula to distribute to states Section 130 Program funds, which averaged $235 million per year during the last 10 years (fiscal years 2009 through 2018). Section 130 Program projects are funded at a 90 percent federal share, with the state or the roadway authority funding the remaining 10 percent. States have 4 years to obligate their program funds before they expire, meaning that in any given fiscal year, states can obligate funds appropriated in that year as well as any unobligated funds from the previous 3 fiscal years. In addition, states may choose to combine funds from multiple years to fund relatively expensive projects. The Section 130 Program’s requirements direct states to establish an implementation schedule for grade-crossing-safety improvement projects that, at a minimum, include warning signs for all public grade crossings. Grade crossings are generally categorized as “active” or “passive” depending on the type of traffic control devices that are present. As of July 2018, according to FRA’s National Highway-Rail Crossing Inventory, there were approximately 68,000 public grade crossings with electronic, or active, traffic control devices in the United States. Another approximately 58,000 public grade crossings have passive traffic-control devices, which include signs and supplementary pavement markings. The requirements also specify that at least 50 percent of Section 130 Program funding must be dedicated to the installation of protective devices at grade crossings, including traffic control devices. States can use remaining program funds for any hazard elimination project. States may also use program funds to improve warning signs and pavement markings or to improve the way the roadway aligns with the tracks (e.g., to ensure low-clearance vehicles do not get stuck on the tracks). In addition, states can use up to 2 percent of the funds to improve their grade-crossing inventories and to collect and analyze data. See figure 2 for examples of the types of projects eligible for Section 130 Program funds and graphical depictions of grade crossings before and after safety improvements have been made. FHWA and FRA are the primary agencies responsible for safety at grade crossings, and they both play key—yet distinct—roles. FHWA oversees the Section 130 Program and monitors states’ uses of program funds through 52 division offices located in each state, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico and through headquarters staff in Washington, D.C. In addition, FHWA’s division staff reviews states’ processes for prioritizing and selecting grade-crossing-safety improvement projects. FHWA does not evaluate the appropriateness of individual grade-crossing projects, but instead helps states determine that projects meet program eligibility requirements. Division staff assists in the implementation of Section 130 Program state-administered projects, and they may participate in state- DOT-led, on-site reviews of grade crossings under consideration for Section 130 Program projects. FHWA headquarters staff is responsible for FHWA-wide initiatives, such as working with stakeholders to establish standards for traffic control devices and systems at grade crossings and for engineering oversight of state-administered safety improvement projects. FRA provides safety oversight of both freight and passenger railroads by: collecting and analyzing data; issuing and enforcing numerous safety regulations, including on grade-crossings’ warning systems; conducting focused inspections, audits, and accident providing technical assistance to railroads and other stakeholders. Specifically, FRA oversees rail safety through eight regional offices and through headquarters staff in Washington, D.C. Regional staff monitor railroads’ compliance with federal safety regulations through inspections and provide technical assistance and guidance to states. In 2017, FRA created a new discipline for grade-crossing safety and is hiring new grade-crossing inspectors. These inspectors conduct field investigations, identify regulatory defects and violations, recommend civil penalty assessments when appropriate, and may participate in state- DOT-led teams that conduct on-site reviews of grade crossings to evaluate potential safety improvements. According to FRA documentation, FRA’s new inspectors will also work with a variety of stakeholders to institute new types of training, explore new safety concepts and technologies, and assist in the development of new or modified highway-rail grade-crossing-safety regulations, initiatives, and programs. The inspectors will also work with FHWA and other DOT operating administrations in a cooperative effort to improve grade- crossing safety. FRA regional staff also investigates select railroad crashes, including those at grade crossings, to determine root causation and any contributing factors, so that railroads can implement corrective actions. FRA headquarters staff develops analytical tools for states to use to prioritize grade-crossing projects. In addition, headquarters staff manages research and development to support improved railroad safety, including at grade crossings. FRA’s Office of Railroad Safety maintains the National Highway-Rail Crossing Inventory database and the Railroad Accident/Incident Reporting System on grade-crossing crashes. Both states and railroads submit information to FRA’s crossing inventory, which is designed to contain information on every grade crossing in the nation. Railroads submit information such as train speed and volume; states submit information such as highway speed limits and average annual daily traffic. The Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008 added requirements for both railroads and states to periodically update the inventory; however, the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) repealed a provision providing DOT authority to issue implementing regulations that would govern states’ reporting to the inventory. According to FRA officials, while FRA’s regulations do not require states to report the information, FRA encourages them to do so. FRA regulations require railroads to report and update their information in the inventory every 3 years or sooner in some instances, such as if new warning devices are installed or the grade crossing is closed. FRA’s accident system contains details about each grade-crossing accident that has occurred. In addition to submitting immediate reports of fatal grade-crossing crashes, railroads are required to submit accident reports within 30 days after the end of the month in which the accident occurred and describe conditions at the time of the accident (e.g., visibility and weather); information on the grade crossing (e.g., type of warning device); and information on the driver (e.g., gender and age). In its role overseeing grade-crossing safety, FRA has sponsored a number of research efforts to better understand the causes of grade- crossing crashes and identify potential ways to improve engineering, education, and enforcement efforts. For example, FRA sponsored an in- depth data analysis of grade-crossing crashes to better identify which crossing characteristics increase the risk of an accident. The report, issued in 2017, found that the volumes of train and vehicle traffic at a crossing are the biggest predictors of grade-crossing crashes. Changes in vehicle and train traffic therefore affect the annual number of grade- crossing crashes. For example, as highway traffic decreased in 2008, possibly due to the economic recession and higher gas prices, so too did the number of grade-crossing crashes. As previously noted, FRA expects that the number of grade-crossing crashes will likely grow with anticipated increases in future train and highway traffic. As discussed below, vehicle and train volume are included in the U.S. DOT Accident Prediction Model, which some states use to select grade-crossing improvement projects. According to FRA officials, FRA is using the results of this recent in-depth data analysis to, in part, evaluate whether additional risk factors, such as the number of male drivers or trains carrying toxic materials, should be added to the model. FRA has targeted other research into understanding driver behavior at grade crossings, which is the leading cause of crashes. According to FRA’s accident data, in 2017, 71 percent of fatal crashes at public grade crossings occurred at those with gates. In 2004, the DOT Inspector General (IG) reported that 94 percent of grade-crossing crashes from 1994 to 2003 could be attributed to risky driver behavior or poor judgement. State officials we spoke with explained that drivers may become impatient waiting at a grade crossing and decide to go around the gates. Drivers may also line up over the grade crossing in heavy vehicular traffic, and be unable to exit before the gates come down. See figure 3 for examples of risky driver behavior at grade crossings. To better understand driver behavior, FRA sponsored a John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (Volpe Center) study that recorded and analyzed drivers’ actions as they approached grade crossings. The researchers found that almost half of drivers were doing another task, such as eating, and over a third did not look in either direction while approaching passive grade crossings. We have previously reported, and many stakeholders we interviewed agreed, that in light of inappropriate driver behavior, technological solutions alone may not fully resolve safety issues at grade crossings. In addition, public-education and law-enforcement efforts can augment the effectiveness of technological solutions. According to FRA officials, they shared information on driver education with DOT’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) as NHTSA works more closely with states on driver education manuals. According to DOT officials, NHTSA updates its driver education materials every 2–3 years and plans to consider including grade-crossing-safety materials in the next versions. FRA is also working with states and localities to research and develop new protective devices and other safety measures targeted at improving driver behavior at grade crossings. As most fatal crashes happen at grade crossings already equipped with gates, FRA and state and local agencies are exploring whether additional safety measures can improve safety at those locations. For example, in 2016 and 2017, FRA’s Grade Crossing Task Force worked with the Volpe Center and the City of Orlando to test whether photo enforcement at grade crossings could reduce risky driver behavior. The City of Orlando installed automated photo-enforcement devices at a grade crossing, and instead of issuing fines to drivers who had violated its warning devices, sent drivers a warning notice and educational safety materials. Eight months after the photo-enforcement system was installed, grade crossing violations decreased by 15 percent. While FRA judged these enforcement efforts successful at changing driver behavior, a 2015 FRA whitepaper noted that photo enforcement equipment is costly—on average costing over $300,000 per crossing to install and operate for 2 years—and may not be cost-effective for most grade crossings. FRA found that due to costs and state laws prohibiting photo-enforcement, only two photo- enforcement cameras were currently in operation at grade crossings across the country. States, localities, and FHWA are also exploring whether new types of pavement markings at grade crossings can improve driver behavior. According to DOT officials, FHWA is working with two states to develop new cross-hatch pavement markings for grade crossings that would comply with the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, similar to the “don’t block the box” type pavement markings used in intersections. FHWA also worked with a city to test the use of in-roadway lights to delineate the crossing. (See fig. 4). FRA and state DOTs are also trying to improve pedestrian safety at grade crossings by developing new safety measures. Grade-crossing accidents involving pedestrians are less frequent than those involving automobiles at grade crossings but have a higher fatality rate. While pedestrians were involved in only 9 percent of accidents at public crossings in 2017, almost 40 percent of fatal grade-crossing accidents involved pedestrians. To try to improve pedestrian safety, in 2012 the Volpe Center worked with New Jersey Transit to study whether adding additional pedestrian gate skirts— hanging gates that further block a crossing (see fig. 5)—would prevent people from ducking under the gates. The Volpe Center reported that these new gates had mixed success. While incidents of people going under and around the gates decreased, more people chose to cross the tracks in the street rather than at the sidewalk. Finally, FRA is exploring new automated and connected vehicle technologies that could reduce risky driver behavior at grade crossings. FRA, FHWA, and officials from one state we interviewed said they anticipate that such technology will be critical to further improving safety. Specifically, FRA and FHWA are coordinating with DOT’s Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office to develop pilot technology that would enable crossing infrastructure or trains to communicate wirelessly with vehicles. Vehicles can use this information to warn the driver that a crash or violation is imminent, or integrate with onboard active safety systems. According to FRA officials, they completed a proof of concept in 2013 and completed and tested a prototype of the technology in 2017. DOT officials said that DOT does not have a time frame for when automakers might begin incorporating such connected vehicle technologies and noted that retrofitting older cars with new equipment will likely make this a long-term effort. FRA shares information on its research in various ways with state DOTs, because states are responsible for deciding which safety measures to install at grade crossings. Specifically, FRA and FHWA jointly hold quarterly webinars with stakeholders, including state DOT officials, and conduct presentations at highway-rail safety workshops. Information on safety measures such as grade-crossing devices, signs, and markings are also included in the Railroad-Highway Grade Crossing Handbook. According to DOT officials, the handbook was developed jointly by FHWA and FRA. The last version of the handbook was updated in 2007 and includes some out of date information. FRA and FHWA officials said they began working on an update in 2017, but missed the July 2018 target completion date. According to FHWA officials, updating the handbook is a complex undertaking that has taken more time than they anticipated due to the extensive collaboration required among stakeholders. FHWA officials said they anticipate completing the update during the spring of 2019. The risk of crashes at public grade crossings within a state factors into states’ selection of over 1,000 new Section 130 Program projects nationally each fiscal year. FHWA requires states to develop a grade crossing program that considers relative risk. FHWA officials said they review the methods that states use to select projects to ensure that risk is considered. According to a 2016 academic study of 50 states, most states use mathematical formulas, or “accident prediction models,” to help assess risk and identify grade crossings for potential projects. More specifically, these accident prediction models use factors such as grade crossing characteristics and accident history to rank grade crossings by risk. DOT provides one such model—the Accident Prediction Model—and some states have developed their own models. The study reported that 19 states used DOT’s model and 20 states used a different model. It also found that the DOT and commonly used state models include some similar grade-crossing characteristics to predict accident risk. For example, the selected models reviewed all considered vehicle- and train- traffic volume, which FRA has found to be the strongest predictors of grade-crossing crashes. FRA makes its Accident Prediction Model available to states online through its Web Accident Prediction System. This system is an online tool that uses FRA’s crossing inventory, crossing collision history, and the DOT Accident Prediction Model to predict accident risk for grade crossings in each state. Only one of the eight states in our review used the system as its primary source for ranking grade-crossing risk. Most of the other states perform their own calculations to rank grade crossings. Officials from two states said that they believe their state-maintained data are more reliable than FRA’s crossing inventory and explained that they go directly to their contacts at railroads to get updated information on factors such as train volume. Accident prediction models are only one source of information states use when selecting Section 130 Program projects. According to the state officials we spoke with, a variety of other considerations can also influence their decisions, including the following: Proximity of projects together along a railroad “corridor” in order to gain efficiencies and reduce construction costs. Requests from local jurisdictions or railroads. These stakeholders may have information on upcoming changes at a grade crossing, such as higher train volume or new housing developments nearby, which would increase risk but would not be reflected yet in the accident prediction model. Availability of local funding to provide the required 10 percent match for Section 130 Program projects, while trying to spread the funds fairly across the state. States may also consider grade crossings that have had close calls in the past, such as where a car narrowly avoided being hit by a train. FRA does not require railroads to report on these close calls, or “near misses;” however, according to state officials, railroads sometimes provide this information to states on an ad-hoc basis. State officials from four of the eight states we spoke with said they considered near misses when selecting Section 130 Program projects. A 2004 Volpe Center report noted that studying close calls was a proactive way to improve safety. According to the report, FRA sponsored a workshop to learn about the benefits of collecting and analyzing close calls. However, stakeholders we interviewed noted challenges formalizing near-miss reporting. For example, Volpe Center officials said these reports are subjective in nature—what one engineer considers a close call, others may not. FRA developed another online tool—GradeDec—to allow states to compare the costs and benefits for various grade-crossing improvement projects. GradeDec uses models to analyze a project’s risk and calculate cost-benefit ratios and net present value for potential projects. FRA provides state DOTs with on-site GradeDec workshops upon request. While FRA officials noted that many state and local governments have registered to use the program, none of the state officials we spoke with identified GradeDec as a tool that they use to conduct cost-benefit analysis. Officials from two state DOTs we spoke with said that cost- benefit analyses could help them better identify and select the most cost- effective crossing safety projects in the future. According to the academic study of 50 states noted above, because of limited funding for grade-crossing improvements, states should consider the life-cycle costs of the projects as well as net present value to help select projects. As discussed later in this report, the small number of crashes at grade crossings can make it challenging to distinguish between different projects in terms of their effectiveness in reducing accidents. Finally, after they have considered risk factors and created a list of potential grade crossings for improvement, state officials, along with relevant stakeholders from railroads and local governments, conduct field reviews of the potential projects. According to state officials, these reviews help identify grade-crossing characteristics that may not be included in the accident prediction models, such as vegetation that would obstruct drivers’ views. In 2008, legislation was enacted mandating reporting by states and railroads to the National Highway-Rail Crossing Inventory. However, the fact that reporting to the inventory remained voluntary until 2015 has had lingering effects on the completeness of the data in the inventory. In 2015, as mandated by statute, FRA issued regulations requiring railroads to update certain data elements for all grade crossings every 3 years. However, our analysis of FRA’s crossing inventory found that 4 percent of grade crossings were last updated in 2009 or earlier. In addition, because MAP-21 repealed DOT’s authority to issue regulations that would govern state reporting to the inventory, state reporting of grade-crossing data remains voluntary, according to FRA officials, and all state-reported information is not complete. Our analysis of state-reported data in FRA’s crossing inventory found varying levels of completeness. For example, while some state-reported data fields were almost entirely complete, 33 percent of public grade crossings were missing data on posted highway speed. We also found that of the crossings for which states reported the year when the highway-traffic count was conducted, 64 percent of the highway-traffic counts for public grade crossings, another important risk factor, had not been updated since 2009, or earlier. According to the 2015 final rule, FRA will continue to evaluate whether additional regulations to address state reporting are needed to maintain the crossing inventory’s accuracy. FRA officials told us that improving inventory data will help them better deploy their limited resources, particularly their grade-crossing inspectors, and said that they have taken steps to help improve the data. In 2017, FRA regional officials conducted field reviews to verify the latitude and longitude data for grade crossings in the inventory, data that states are responsible for updating. In addition, FRA expects its grade-crossing inspectors as part of their inspections to review and identify issues with the railroad- and state-reported inventory data. According to FRA officials, FRA has begun to both transition its 19 grade-crossing managers into grade-crossing inspectors and also hire new inspectors, for an eventual total of 24 inspectors and eight regional specialists to supervise their activities. To help ensure railroads’ compliance with crossing inventory regulations, officials said that the inspectors will use spot checks to validate the inventory data by comparing grade-crossing characteristics in the field with the information railroads submitted to the inventory. In addition, FRA has incorporated information on inventory-reporting requirements into the grade-crossing inspectors’ training. Finally, FRA is currently developing guidelines for the grade-crossing inspections similar to those for other FRA safety disciplines. FRA headquarters officials acknowledged that they are still clarifying the details for the inspections that will be included in the compliance manuals that inspectors will use. Specifically, they said they are still determining appropriate inspector workloads and drafting specific guidelines that will need to be integrated into FRA’s regional inspection plans. FRA officials said they are working to develop and make available inventory inspection guidance to the grade-crossing managers and inspectors by December 31, 2018. In the meantime, FRA held training that included information on inventory-reporting requirements. In August 2018, FRA developed guidance for grade-crossing inspections specific to quiet zones in response to a recommendation we made in 2017. It is important that FRA meets its goal to issue similar guidance specific to reviewing the accuracy of the inventory data, as FRA cannot have reasonable assurance that inspections that are already under way are being conducted in such a manner that would allow them to consistently identify data reliability issues at each crossing. About 75 percent of all Section 130 Program projects states implemented in fiscal year 2016 involved installing or updating active grade-crossing equipment, including warning lights and protective gates (see fig. 6). The prevalence of this type of project is in part due to the Section 130 Program requirement that states spend at least 50 percent of funds on protective devices. Other than eliminating a grade crossing, adding protective devices has long been considered the most effective way of reducing the risk of a crash. Officials from six of eight state DOTs we interviewed told us that the numbers and types of grade-crossing projects they implement are dependent on the amount of Section 130 Program funding they receive and the cost of the projects. As previously described, funds are set aside from the Highway Safety Improvement Program and distributed to states by a statutory formula that includes factors such as the number of grade crossings in each state. Officials from six of the eight state DOTs we spoke to agreed that the set-aside nature of the program was crucial in allowing them to implement projects, many of which they said would not have been possible without Section 130 Program funds. For example, many said the formula funding ensures that grade-crossing projects are completed along with highway safety projects, particularly given the fact that fatalities resulting from grade-crossing crashes account for so few when compared to highway deaths. Overall, fatalities resulting from grade-crossing crashes account for less than 1 percent of all highway- related fatalities. In fiscal year 2018, the funds distributed ranged from a low of approximately $1.2 million for eight states and Washington, D.C., to over $16 million for California and over $19 million for Texas. The number of grade crossings in the eight states and Washington, D.C. ranged from 5 to 380, while California had almost 6,000 and Texas had over 9,000. Project implementation costs varied by project type and ranged widely depending on project scope. Based on 2016 DOT data, some typical project costs ranged as follows: adding signs to passive grade crossings—$500 to $1,500; adding flashing lights and two gates to passive grade crossings— $150,000 to $300,000; adding four gates to grade crossings with flashing lights—$250,000 - closing a grade crossing—$25,000 to $100,000; and separating a grade crossing from traffic (Grade Separation)—$5 million to $40 million. State officials we spoke with cited several challenges in pursuing certain types of controversial, innovative, and expensive projects that could help them address the evolving nature of risk at grade crossings and difficulty in measuring the effectiveness of their projects. First, most state DOT officials said that the cost of grade-separation projects and, at times, the controversy of eliminating grade crossings through closure reduces the number of these projects, while acknowledging that they are the most effective ways to improve safety. These types of projects made up only 3 percent of Section 130 Program projects in fiscal year 2016 (see fig. 6). Grade-separation projects are often more expensive than the annual Section 130 Program funding available to states. In 2018, only eight states received annual Section 130 Program funding sufficient to fund a $7-million grade-separation project. As discussed previously, to fund relatively expensive projects, states may choose to combine funds from multiple years. Also, states and railroads may make incentive payments to localities for the permanent closure of a grade crossing. In addition to the cost, most state DOT officials reported challenges obtaining local support for closing grade crossings. They said closures may inconvenience residents who use the road and force emergency responders to take longer routes, potentially slowing response times. Grade-separation projects address these safety concerns and may be more agreeable to residents, but they are substantially more expensive. While up to $7,500 in Section 130 Program funding can be used to help incentivize communities to close grade crossings, officials from some of our selected state DOTs said this amount is generally not enough to persuade local officials to support the closing. Second, officials from many state DOTs we interviewed also reported that the requirements of the Section 130 Program create challenges for them in implementing what they considered to be innovative projects. For example, the program requirement that 50 percent of funds be used on protective devices, combined with what one researcher described to us as the tendency by states to implement “known” projects—i.e., protective devices—may impede states’ selection of new, more innovative safety projects. Officials we interviewed from many state DOTs described challenges related to the program’s requirements. They noted that they are prevented from using Section 130 Program funds for new types of safety technologies not yet incorporated into FHWA’s Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices. As noted previously in this report, outside the Section 130 Program FHWA is working with states and localities to explore whether new types of pavement markings at grade crossings, not in the manual, can improve driver behavior. One state DOT official we interviewed suggested changes to allow states to fund one grade- crossing pilot project per year or to use a set percentage of program funds to finance a pilot project that could help them explore promising but as yet unproven technologies. Third, state DOT officials from four of the eight selected states also said it can be difficult to find funding for the required 10 percent state match. As previously mentioned, while certain rail-safety projects are eligible for up to 100 percent federal funding, Section 130 Program projects are funded at a 90 percent federal share. According to DOT documentation we reviewed, only some states have a dedicated source for such a match, and state DOT officials from one of our selected states said their state cannot use state funds for the 10 percent match. Some state DOT officials said this situation can drive project selection. For example, they sometimes chose projects based on which localities or railroads were willing to provide matching funds or offer cost savings. Finally, many state officials cited challenges in measuring the effectiveness of grade crossing projects in reducing crashes or the risk of crashes. In particular, state officials we spoke to said it can be difficult to use before-and-after crash statistics as a measure of effectiveness because of the low number and random nature of crashes. Also, as FRA research has shown and as FHWA and FRA have noted, reporting on before-and-after grade-crossing accident statistics can be misleading, given the infrequency of crashes and crashes that are not the result of grade crossing conditions. States’ required Section 130 Program annual progress reports to the Secretary of DOT call for states to report on the effectiveness of the improvements they made. FHWA reporting guidance suggests they define effectiveness as the reduction in the number of fatalities and serious injuries after grade-crossing projects were implemented, consistent with statutory requirements. In addition, FHWA guidance states that consideration should be given to quantifying effectiveness in the context of fatalities and serious injuries. However, states often report no differences in crashes after specific projects were implemented, and there have been instances where states reported a slight increase in crashes. Such an increase does not necessarily mean that the project was not effective in reducing the overall risk of a crash. Also, not all projects are implemented at grade crossings where there has been a crash. Among other information, states also typically report information on funding and data on the numbers and types of projects implemented. In addition, the extent to which states report projects’ effectiveness varies greatly. Given states’ responsibility for implementing the Section 130 Program and the differences in the amounts of funding they receive, FHWA officials said states should determine and report on the appropriate effectiveness metrics for their programs. According to FHWA officials, during the 2017 reporting year, a few states requested examples of what to include when reporting effectiveness, and FHWA responded with examples of various methods they could use, such as a benefit-cost ratio or the percentage decrease in fatalities, serious injuries, and crashes. Regardless of the difficulty in measuring the effectiveness of specific projects, most state DOT officials we interviewed stressed the importance of the Section 130 Program in funding grade-crossing projects. FHWA’s biennial report to Congress is intended to provide information to Congress on the progress being made by the states in implementing projects to improve safety and, in addition, make recommendations for future implementation of the program. FHWA reviews states’ annual Section 130 Program reports and uses them to formulate the report to Congress every 2 years. FHWA’s 2018 report highlights that the Section 130 Program has seen great success since 1975, with a decrease of approximately 74 percent in fatalities at the same time that there was an increase in vehicle and train traffic. The report described the latest available 10-year trend, from 2007 to 2016, as showing a 31 percent decrease in fatalities. Fatalities have also decreased when adjusted for train traffic. However, FHWA officials acknowledged in interviews with us that crashes and fatalities have remained constant since about 2009, with more recent data showing a slight increase in fatalities over the last 2 to 3 years, data that are consistent with the increases in overall roadway fatalities. The officials said increased train- and vehicle-traffic volumes could be contributing to that increase, in addition to other factors, such as more bicycle riders and pedestrians using grade crossings. As described earlier, states have generally already used Section 130 Program funding to address safety at the riskiest grade crossings by adding protective measures, typically lights and gates. Yet crashes continue to occur at these improved grade crossings. Given these trends and the challenges discussed earlier related to the requirements of the Section 130 Program, it is not clear whether the program remains effective in continuing to reduce the risk of crashes and fatalities at grade crossings. As required, FHWA’s biennial report includes a section on “recommendations for future implementation” of the Section 130 Program. As part of this, FHWA reports on challenges and actions being taken to address them. FHWA’s 2018 report identified one of the same challenges we heard about from state DOT officials related to the inability or unwillingness of local agencies to provide matching funds and the relatively low amount of funding designed to incentivize localities to close crossings. FHWA reported on its efforts to address these challenges, including by providing guidance, resources, and supportive training to states and local agencies and serving as a clearinghouse for innovative methods of supporting projects. However, with the exception of the funding challenge, FHWA’s most recent report does not include the other challenges state officials identified to us related to the requirements of the Section 130 Program discussed above. These include program funding requirements that may impede innovative approaches and the difficulties of using before-and-after crash statistics to measure effectiveness. Many state DOT officials we spoke with said there may be an opportunity to more broadly assess the Section 130 Program at the national level. It could be more informative to comprehensively assess more detailed crash trends, such as those that look forward over multiple years across the more than 1,700 crashes nationwide, rather than on the approximately 35 that occur on average within a state, and identify strategies to address those trends. Doing so could help FHWA learn more about why crashes are continuing and what types of projects may be effective. There could be ways to evaluate the program in a more comprehensive way; many state DOT officials we interviewed told us such a comprehensive evaluation could help improve program effectiveness in a number of ways, including by enabling the program to better keep up with the rapid pace of technological change and re- examining eligibility requirements that limit the flexibility of states to consider other types of projects beyond engineering. Also, most state DOT officials we interviewed agreed that education and enforcement efforts are crucial to further improving safety, as did 8 out of 10 other stakeholders we spoke to, as well as officials from Volpe Center and NTSB. However, according to FHWA officials, those project types are not allowed under the Section 130 Program’s requirements. The officials said FHWA has partnered with FRA and NHTSA on research efforts, such as driver-behavior studies, to inform grade-crossing safety issues. However, the officials said that FHWA has not conducted a program evaluation of the Section 130 Program to consider whether the program’s funding and other requirements allow states to adequately address ongoing safety issues such as driver behavior. FHWA officials said that there is no federal requirement for them to conduct such a program evaluation. We have previously reported that an important component of effective program management is through program performance assessment, which helps establish a program’s effectiveness—the extent to which a program is operating as it was intended and the extent to which a program achieves what the agency proposes to accomplish. This type of evaluative information helps the executive branch and congressional committees make decisions about the programs they oversee. Assessing program performance includes conducting program evaluations, which are individual systematic studies that answer specific questions about how well a program is meeting its objectives. In addition, federal internal-control standards state that management should identify, analyze, and respond to significant changes in a program’s environment that could pose new risks. FHWA officials said the fact that crashes and fatalities have held steady while the volume of train and vehicle traffic has increased is an indication that grade-crossing safety has continued to improve. However, specific to fatalities per million train-miles, FHWA’s 2018 biennial report shows this rate to be fairly constant since 2009. As noted previously, FRA expects train and traffic volumes to continue to increase and has expressed concern that grade-crossing crashes and fatalities may also increase. Without conducting a program evaluation, FHWA cannot ensure that the Section 130 Program is achieving one of the national goals of the federal- aid highway program, to reduce fatalities and injuries. In addition, It is difficult to see how FHWA, in its biennial reports to Congress, could make informed recommendations for future program implementation without conducting a program evaluation to assess, among other things, whether program requirements first established some four decades ago continue to reduce fatalities and injuries. We note that as part of a program evaluation, some changes that FHWA, working with FRA, identifies as potentially having merit to improve the program’s effectiveness could require a statutory change. The continued number of crashes and fatalities at grade crossings with devices intended to warn of a train’s presence calls into question whether the Section 130 Program is structured to help states continue making progress toward the national goal to reduce fatalities and injuries. An evaluation of the program’s requirements could help determine whether Congress should consider better ways to focus federal funds to address the key factor in crashes—risky driver behavior. An FHWA program evaluation could also help determine whether, for example, states could more strategically target emerging safety problems if changes were made to the types of projects eligible for funding under the Section 130 Program. FRA’s new grade-crossing inspectors are meant to increase the effectiveness of FRA’s rail-safety oversight activities, and accordingly, these FRA inspectors, along with FRA researchers, may be well positioned to help FHWA evaluate potential changes to improve the effectiveness of the Section 130 Program. The Administrator of FHWA, working with FRA, should evaluate the Section 130 Program’s requirements to determine whether they allow states sufficient flexibility to adequately address current and emerging grade-crossing safety issues. As part of this evaluation, FHWA should determine whether statutory changes to the program are necessary to improve its effectiveness. (Recommendation 1) We provided a draft of this report to DOT for review and comment. In written comments, reproduced in appendix II, DOT concurred with our recommendation. DOT also provided technical comments, which we incorporated as appropriate. We are sending copies of this report to the appropriate congressional committees, the Secretary of Transportation, the Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration, and the Administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration. In addition, the report will be available at no charge on GAO’s website at http://www.gao.gov. If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact me at (202) 512-2834 or flemings@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made key contributions to this report are listed in appendix III. This report examines (1) what has been the focus of Federal Railroad Administration’s (FRA) grade-crossing-safety research, (2) how states select and implement grade-crossing projects and what railroad- and state-reported data are available from FRA to inform states’ decisions, and (3) the challenges states reported in implementing and assessing projects and the extent to which the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) assesses the program’s effectiveness. The scope of this work focused on the nation’s more than 128,000 public grade crossings. We did not include private grade crossings, as states can only use Railway- Highway Crossings Program (commonly referred to as the Section 130 Program) funds to improve safety at public grade crossings. While FRA provides safety grants to address rail issues, including for grade-crossing projects, we focused our work on the Section 130 Program because it is the primary source of federal funding directed at grade-crossing-safety improvement. For each objective we reviewed: pertinent statutes and FHWA and FRA regulations and documents; interviewed FHWA and FRA program officials in headquarters; and conducted in-depth interviews with a non- generalizable sample of organizations that included officials from 4 freight and passenger railroads, 12 state agencies from 8 states, 6 FRA regional offices, and 8 FHWA state division offices. We also spoke with representatives from relevant associations and officials from NTSB and Volpe Center. We selected these organizations based on our initial background research, prior work, and input from other stakeholders, among other things. See the paragraph below for additional selection details and table 5 for a complete list of organizations we spoke with. We selected eight states as part of our non-generalizable sample for interviews. These states included Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. The states were selected to include a mix of state experiences based on a variety of factors, including the number of grade crossings and crashes at those crossings, and the amount of Section 130 Program funding they received. Specifically, we selected four states from those in the top 25 percent of all states in terms of their number of grade crossings and the amount of Section 130 Program funds they received. We selected the other four states to include a mix of these factors. We also considered geographical diversity and recommendations from FRA and FHWA officials. Within these eight states, we conducted in-depth interviews with FHWA division staff, FRA regional staff, and state officials. A variety of state agencies administer the Section 130 Program within their state; the state officials we spoke with from our eight selected states worked for agencies such as state departments of transportation, corporation commissions, and public utility commissions. We also spoke with a non-generalizable sample of four railroads: Amtrak, CSX, Norfolk Southern, and Sierra Northern. We selected railroads based on a variety of factors including geographic location and stakeholder recommendations. We also conducted additional work related to each of the objectives. To describe the focus of FRA’s grade-crossing-safety research, we examined FRA research aimed at understanding the causes of grade- crossing crashes and identifying potential improvements and described FRA efforts to test new approaches that could improve safety. We did not assess the quality of FRA’s research, as that was beyond the scope of this engagement. Instead, we described the nature of the research. We also spoke with FRA research and development staff, Volpe researchers, and state partners about this work. To describe how states select and implement grade-crossing projects, and what FRA data are available to inform their decisions, we reviewed an academic study that included a literature review and interviews with state officials to describe how states select Section 130 Program projects. We spoke with the researcher and determined the study to be reliable for the purposes of our reporting objectives. We also spoke with officials from our eight selected states, FHWA division staff, and FRA regional staff, and reviewed the states’ 2017 Section 130 Program reports. As part of this objective, we also assessed the reliability of data reported for all railroads in FRA’s National Highway-Rail Crossing Inventory data as of August 31, 2018. For public grade crossings that were not closed, we examined a selection of fields within the database to identify the frequency of missing data (see table 1), data anomalies (see table 2), relational errors, where two related data fields had values that were incompatible (see table 3), and when the data was last updated (see table 4). Specifically, we conducted the following electronic tests on the crossing inventory data to determine if they were within reasonable ranges, were internally consistent, and appeared complete: Before conducting our analysis, we filtered the inventory data to only include open, public, at-grade crossings. To understand FRA’s efforts to improve its crossing inventory data, we interviewed FRA regional and headquarters staff and reviewed job descriptions for FRA’s new grade- crossing inspectors. Finally, to determine the challenges states reported in implementing and assessing grade-crossing safety projects and the extent to which FHWA assesses the program’s effectiveness, we reviewed program requirements and state project data and other components from FHWA’s 2016 and 2018 Section 130 Program biennial reports to Congress. We also reviewed FHWA’s summary of fiscal year 2018 program funds provided to states and federal laws and guidance related to implementing projects and measuring performance. We interviewed state DOT officials from the eight selected states and other stakeholders on the challenges states reported in implementing and assessing projects, and FHWA and FRA officials for their perspectives on managing the program, including how FHWA measures performance and assesses program effectiveness. We compared information collected from FHWA and FRA to federal internal-control standards and criteria on program evaluation identified in our previous work. In addition, we reviewed FHWA and FRA documents designed to guide states, such as the Grade Crossing Handbook, the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, the Action Plan and Project Prioritization Noteworthy Practices Guide, and other related documents. We conducted this performance audit from November 2017 to November 2018 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. Susan A. Fleming, (202) 512-2834, Flemings@gao.gov. In addition to the individual named above, Maria Edelstein (Assistant Director); Gary Guggolz (Analyst in Charge); Steven Campbell; Tim Guinane; Ben Licht; Catrin Jones; Delwen Jones; SaraAnn Moessbauer; Malika Rice; Larry Thomas; and Crystal Wesco made key contributions to this report.

Question: Write a one-page summary of the report 1.

Answer: The administration of elections in the United States is highly decentralized. Elections are primarily administered by thousands of state and local systems rather than a single, unified national system. States and localities share responsibility for most election administration duties. Exactly how responsibilities are assigned at the state and local levels varies both between and within states, but there are some general patterns in the distribution of duties. States typically have primary responsibility for making decisions about the rules of elections (policymaking). Localities typically have primary responsibility for conducting elections in accordance with those rules (implementation). Localities, with varying contributions from states, typically also have primary responsibility for paying for the activities and resources required to conduct elections (funding). The structures of the state and local systems that conduct elections also vary between and within states. Common variations include differences related to the leadership of the system, the relationship between local election officials and the state, and the population size and density of the jurisdiction the system serves. The leadership of a state or local election system may be elected or appointed, and both the leaders and the methods used to select them may be partisan, bipartisan, or nonpartisan. State officials may have more or less direct influence over local election officials, and the extent of their influence may be affected by other structural features of the state's election systems, such as the methods used to select local officials. Finally, larger election jurisdictions have different administrative advantages and challenges than smaller ones, and more urban jurisdictions have different advantages and challenges than more rural ones. These differences between jurisdictions may be reflected in structural features of the election systems that serve them, such as how the systems allocate resources and where they find specialized expertise. Understanding the duties and structures of state and local election systems may be relevant to Congress for at least two reasons. First, the way state and local election systems work can affect how well federal action on election administration serves its intended purposes. The effectiveness of federal action depends in part on how it is implemented. How it is implemented can depend, in turn, on how the state and local election systems that implement it work. Second, Congress can make or incentivize changes to the way state and local election systems work. Congress has a number of policy tools it can use to affect the administration of federal elections. The use of these tools can—either intentionally or unintentionally—affect the state and local election systems that administer federal elections.