Election costs are adding up
All the bills haven't come in for Preble Co., but others have seen big jump in expenses

Staff and wire reports   Palladium-Item  14 November 2004

Election boards in Ohio are adding up costs for what was likely the most expensive election in state and federal history.

In Cuyahoga County, commissioners approved additional spending of $1.5 million to pay for election board overtime and other expenses.

In Allen County, the election board exceeded its half-million dollar budget by almost $150,000, hiring double the normal amount of part-time workers.

In Coshocton County, the board's two full-time employees might have to go without pay in December because some bills have to be paid first.

In nearby Preble County, Marilyn Jackson, director of the Preble County Board of Elections, is still adding up the cost of running the election.

"We haven't got all of the bills in yet," Jackson said.

Any additional expenses for this year's election probably were the result of increased absentee voting.

"There's postage," Jackson said. "It costs 83 cents for every ballot we send out, and we sent out about 1,500," twice the number that might have been mailed before.

"We had some additional help here at the office too," Jackson said, "just to process all of the absentee ballots."

Jackson estimates the final cost for the Nov. 2 election will be about $35,000. Her office, with two full-time employees, has a total annual budget of $180,000. She has already asked for one additional appropriation of $13,000 for this year. "I think I'll have to ask for another five or six thousand once all the bills are in," Jackson said.

The need for more money isn't entirely the result of additional costs in the general election. Jackson had to run three elections in 2004 a special election, a primary and the general.

Across the line in Indiana, the cost of running the election appears to be running about the same as in past years.

Wayne County Clerk Sue Anne Lower said, "It takes the same number of people to run the polls as it always did."

Pay for poll workers is the largest part of an Election Day budget. Lower is also still paying bills for Nov. 2, but estimates the cost will be about $45,000 when she's done, similar to past years. About $37,000 of that will be spent on hiring the help clerks, judges and inspectors who put in 12-hour days on Nov. 2.

The only major new expense in Wayne County this year was $2,200 paid to a professional moving company to transport the new touch screen voting machines to and from the precincts. County maintenance personnel used to do the deliveries of the punch card booths, but the computer are much heavier.

Lower is waiting to see if she has another additional expense paper ballots that were ordered as a back-up in case Wayne County's new touch screen machines were certified in time for the election.

"I think they (Election Systems & Software, the company that sold the county the new machines) will pick up the extra costs for the paper ballots," Lower said.

Across Ohio, "The numbers are up pretty substantially," said Aaron Ockerman, a Columbus lobbyist representing county election board directors.

Officials said Monday that increased voter registration, Republican challenges of some voters ahead of the election and several last-minute policy changes all contributed to the costs.

Congress hasn't provided enough money to cover election requirements created by the 2002 Help America Vote Act, said Keith Cunningham, Allen County elections board director and incoming president of the state election board directors association.

"If the intention of the Help America Vote Act was to take the burden of voter registration and election management systems off the back of local government, it failed terribly in achieving that goal," Cunningham said.