Costs
to Administer Elections
Oregon:
total, per ballot and per registered voter, 1992-2022
California, San
Diego, compare polling places (cheaper) & vote centers (more),
2019-2023
National
reports
How costs are
divided in different states, 2018
NCSL report (and Ballotpedia summary)
General
discussion, 2016 GAO
report, pp.36-48
Election
equipment
Report on costs for all
makers of election equipment in the US: Price of Voting, 2021
Report on
structure of the election equipment industry in the US: Business of Voting, 2017
Large collection of contracts from 40
states 1992-2008 for election equipment & support, collected by Dr. Joseph
Lorenzo Hall
with Table of Contents by county, date & vendor, and
Readme. A few more 1998-2022
New
York state contracts for scanning & counting with Clear Ballot,
Dominion, ES&S, 2021-2026
Sample contracts
for vote
by mail sorting, 2020-2022
Sample contracts
for website
to post results online, 1998-2022
Audits
of election results
Contract costs to audit election results
Comparison
of costs of different audit methods
Hand
counts, accuracy & time needed per vote counted
Number
of workers
Hours & cost
not available. Breakdown by jurisdiction is in spreadsheet columns AM-AN.
|
Number of pollworkers (question
d5) |
Number of early vote workers (d6) |
Number of people who voted (f1a) |
|
|
ALABAMA |
16,028 |
0 |
2,329,047 |
|
ALASKA |
2,817 |
260 |
361,400 |
|
AMERICAN SAMOA |
0 |
256 |
11,944 |
|
ARIZONA |
7,409 |
1,091 |
3,420,481 |
|
ARKANSAS |
6,440 |
2,379 |
1,209,997 |
|
CALIFORNIA |
46,762 |
25,680 |
17,720,746 |
|
COLORADO |
7,185 |
7,185 |
3,320,607 |
|
CONNECTICUT |
3,590 |
0 |
1,863,479 |
|
DELAWARE |
3,157 |
3 |
514,656 |
|
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA |
2,407 |
2,549 |
346,491 |
|
FLORIDA |
42,247 |
11,173 |
11,137,676 |
|
GEORGIA |
22,401 |
5,073 |
5,023,812 |
|
GUAM |
485 |
48 |
29,377 |
|
HAWAII |
64 |
64 |
580,098 |
|
IDAHO |
5,532 |
303 |
878,527 |
|
ILLINOIS |
43,299 |
3,412 |
6,140,545 |
|
INDIANA |
15,313 |
2,211 |
3,103,284 |
|
IOWA |
8,632 |
1,003 |
1,700,130 |
|
KANSAS |
5,789 |
1,120 |
1,379,623 |
|
KENTUCKY |
7,947 |
4,658 |
2,149,444 |
|
LOUISIANA |
16,980 |
0 |
2,169,354 |
|
MAINE |
6,054 |
0 |
822,534 |
|
MARYLAND |
12,469 |
8,210 |
3,059,603 |
|
MASSACHUSETTS |
13,044 |
0 |
3,658,005 |
|
MICHIGAN |
35,825 |
0 |
5,579,317 |
|
MINNESOTA |
28,646 |
1,139 |
3,290,013 |
|
MISSISSIPPI |
11,358 |
0 |
1,334,155 |
|
MISSOURI |
19,075 |
0 |
3,201,458 |
|
MONTANA |
1,592 |
1,427 |
612,141 |
|
NEBRASKA |
7,695 |
115 |
966,786 |
|
NEVADA |
2,692 |
2,200 |
1,407,761 |
|
NEW HAMPSHIRE |
3,576 |
0 |
814,499 |
|
NEW JERSEY |
7,603 |
0 |
4,494,659 |
|
NEW MEXICO |
3,631 |
953 |
928,230 |
|
NEW YORK |
73,198 |
15,065 |
8,701,749 |
|
NORTH CAROLINA |
24,742 |
12,310 |
5,543,405 |
|
NORTH DAKOTA |
0 |
0 |
364,499 |
|
NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS |
135 |
54 |
13,355 |
|
OHIO |
47,761 |
0 |
5,974,121 |
|
OKLAHOMA |
5,993 |
559 |
1,564,886 |
|
OREGON |
0 |
0 |
2,396,123 |
|
PENNSYLVANIA |
|
|
6,973,951 |
|
PUERTO RICO |
|
|
1,296,169 |
|
RHODE ISLAND |
3,516 |
78 |
519,412 |
|
SOUTH CAROLINA |
16,618 |
517 |
2,523,856 |
|
SOUTH DAKOTA |
2,562 |
177 |
427,406 |
|
TENNESSEE |
16,641 |
2,757 |
3,074,692 |
|
TEXAS |
41,092 |
17,740 |
11,449,044 |
|
U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS |
150 |
40 |
18,064 |
|
UTAH |
2,015 |
521 |
1,542,529 |
|
VERMONT |
|
|
368,075 |
|
VIRGINIA |
27,984 |
2,419 |
4,487,338 |
|
WASHINGTON |
0 |
0 |
4,116,055 |
|
WEST VIRGINIA |
8,143 |
271 |
801,667 |
|
WISCONSIN |
|
|
3,308,331 |
|
WYOMING |
2,052 |
85 |
278,503 |
|
Grand Total |
690,346 |
135,105 |
161,303,109 |
Estonia study looks at cost of each type of
voting, for staff, transport, rent, software, equipment, etc
:
Internet voting
was cheapest there (not trustworthy approach), Eur
2.17-2.26 per vote
Election day
voting in polling places was 2nd cheapest there, Eur
2.83-3.01 per vote, because of many voters and not many staff needed
Early voting was
more expensive, Eur 5.48-17.36, because of few voters
& many staff
They don't have
mail voting, and I think they count by hand, but they didn't say
Study cites some
earlier more limited comparisons of costs
They cite another
study that some voting methods give "Reduced levels of transparency
(Clark, 2019) and the limited possibilities for scrutiny"
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09540962.2020.1732027