Congress allotted $380 million to the states in 2018, money that has largely been spent or committed to security improvements by the 2020 election season, with much remaining to be done.

That allocation provided $14.1 million of the more than $125 million that Pennsylvania plans to spend on voting equipment, and about $6 million for new voting machines in Louisiana that could cost $95 million.

Colorado received more than $6.3 million from the 2018 grant, and “we have plans to use every penny,” Secretary of State Jena Griswold said. But she said a lengthy list of security measures was still unfunded, including safeguards against ransomware attacks; improvements for the state’s voter-registration database; protection for county election offices that connect to that database and for computers linked to county offices; an artificial-intelligence system to detect threats to election offices; and a cybersecurity staff to work with counties.

“And that’s speaking for a state with some of the best cybersecurity safeguards in the nation,” Ms. Griswold said. “When you look at other states that don’t have recently purchased voting equipment, don’t have equipment that’s not completely separated from the internet, don’t have audits — for them, the need is even more pressing.”

Beyond their immediate needs, Ms. Griswold and other state officials said, election agencies will need a steady infusion of money to keep their security measures current against the ever-improving skills of potential intruders.

The $250 million allotment in the Senate was the first sign of movement in a standoff over voting security that had stymied a sheaf of legislation even before Democrats took control of the House of Representatives in November.

Since then, the House has passed two sweeping proposals to tighten the elections infrastructure, one of which, the Securing America’s Federal Elections Act, or SAFE Act, recommended the $600 million the House appropriated separately. Other proposals that have yet to pass either chamber would allot up to $1 billion on security before the 2020 election.