Opinion: D.C.’s public financing program is broken. Democracy vouchers can help.

D.C.’s Office of Campaign Finance recently disclosed that it disbursed $9.3 million in taxpayer dollars to local candidates. That money is part of D.C.’s Public Financing Program, which provides qualifying candidates with public dollars for their campaigns.

The program is ostensibly meant to help level the playing field and encourage civic participation from those who might not otherwise have the resources to run. It provides 5-to-1 matching funds for candidates who decline to receive corporate and traditional PAC contributions, and who are able to raise certain amounts of money through small-dollar fundraising.

But analyzing the donor and candidate data makes clear that the program is subsidizing D.C.’s richest while failing to diversify the donor or candidate pools.

Analyzing the street addresses of contributors reveals that D.C. has paid out about six dollars in public matching funds on behalf of donors in Ward 3, the city’s wealthiest, for every dollar it has paid out on behalf of donors in Ward 8, the city’s poorest. Wards 7 and 8 together are home to nearly a quarter of D.C. residents but generated about 10 percent of the program’s matched contributions.

Which candidates get funded is also a problem. More than nine in ten dollars of matched contributions in the mayoral race have flowed to the two frontrunners, Janeese Lewis George and Kenyan McDuffie. McDuffie has run for office six times since 2010. Lewis George is a two-term D.C. Council incumbent. They are not the first-time candidates the program was built to support. Both are also supported by millions of dollars in outside super PAC money (legally permitted if the candidate and super PAC do not directly coordinate), turning the match into an expensive and redundant public subsidy.

It does not have to be like this. Switching from a 5-to-1 match to a system of democracy vouchers, used in Seattle and approved in Oakland, would increase donor participation and decrease the out-of-pocket costs that deter candidates from running.

The mechanics are straightforward. D.C. would mail a $50 voucher to every eligible voter. Voters could choose to donate all, some, or none of the voucher to their preferred candidates. The cost of the program could be capped at the current public financing level of $13.7 million. If redeemed vouchers exceed the cap, payments would be prorated. If the value of vouchers is less than the cap, the money should be swept into D.C.’s Statehood Fund, reviving the stalled fight for D.C. statehood. (The two are intertwined. The Fair Elections Program is the democracy D.C. has now. The Statehood Fund is a down payment on the democracy D.C. is fighting for.)

Seattle has proved that this program can work. A University of Washington study found that Seattle’s program more than tripled small-dollar contributions and increased the number of donors per race by 350 percent, while nearly doubling the number of candidates competing for office. Separate research at Georgetown University found that voucher users are more demographically representative of Seattle than its cash donors, with greater participation from voters of color and lower-income residents. Last year, Seattle voters renewed the program for another decade. Most importantly, Seattle proves that voters without the means to donate, currently shut out of the system, will participate when given the means to do so.

In contrast, in D.C. fewer than 4 percent of registered voters participated in the matching program. And it is not amplifying small donors: maxed-out donations account for nearly two-thirds of the matched money. It is instead multiplying, with public money, the donations of voters who would give anyway.

Seattle also provides a model for implementation. Like D.C., Seattle mails all registered voters ballots for every election. D.C. could mail vouchers with the primary and general election ballots and collect them through the same existing process. Adults eligible to vote but who are not registered could request vouchers through an online portal.

The statehood provision is not incidental. D.C.’s Statehood Fund has been underfunded since its creation, even as Congress has stalled on admission for a generation. Sweeping unredeemed vouchers into that fund, without a dollar of new taxes, would bolster the case for expanded representation.

The principles behind D.C.’s public financing system were sound: elections have become too expensive, deterring new candidates from running and, in turn, isolating voters who believe their support does not matter. Replacing the 5-to-1 match with $50 vouchers would broaden D.C.’s electorate, diversify its candidates, and give statehood a fighting chance.

David Seidman is a statehood advocate and the Executive Director of Capital Rights Lab.