Roy G. Saltman: How much do localities spend on elections?

[Wilms]

How much do localities spend on elections?

February 16, 2006

Estimated costs: $10 per voter (in year 2000); of every dollar 35 cents is for voter registration, 35 cents for equipment, and 30 cents for administration.

By Roy G. Saltman

The analysis of election costs is a difficult process because the information needed is not readily available. The Voting Technology Project (VTP) of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) undertook a study of election costs and provided information about what they found in their 2001 report Voting: What Is, What Could Be (pages 48-54).

They stated that “there is no ready answer” to the question of how much elections cost in this country. The reason is that “election expenditures are sufficiently small that they do not make the list of important activities… in the annual report by the about what state and local governments spend on their functions.” The smallest expenditure reported in 2000 was $14 billion for solid waste management.

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There has been some analyses (not done by the VTP) comparing costs between the use of paperless direct-recording electronic (DRE) voting systems and ballot-using optical-scan voting systems. These analyses purport to demonstrate that while DRE systems are more expensive initially, in the long-run they are less expensive because the use of paper with optical scan equipment must be paid with each election. However, in the view of this author, the real question is the achievement of public confidence in the system being used. If a slightly more expensive system (including maintenance and reliability considerations) will generate considerably more public confidence without disadvantaging minorities, then that psychic benefit must be included in the cost trade-off. Hopefully, procurement decisions that must satisfy requirements as being “least costly” can accommodate qualitative features that are intangible but otherwise necessary for public acceptance and confidence.

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http://niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=ask_this.view&askthisid=00175

[ewagner]

1. Big issue here

whether to make primaries mandatory when there is any race with three or more candidates....the gripe is that it costs the City between $8,000-$10,000 to run an election...printing costs, paid poll watchers, officials, security, etc....

btw we use optical scan....we can randomly audit if we need to...recounts are possible by hand.

[Wilms]

2. How about if they schedule primary's when there are state-wide primary's?