The Cost of E-Voting

[Wilms]

Thanks to Livvy for posting this story on the Daily Thread which I encourage you to recommend. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x500070

The Cost of E-Voting

By Kim Zetter

April 04, 2008

One reason election officials around the country have given for purchasing touch-screen voting machines is that they say the systems save money -- both in the cost of printing paper ballots and in storing them after an election. Officials have made this claim, despite the fact that the machines carry a steep price tag (about $3,000 per machine).

So SaveOurVotes (.pdf), a voting integrity group in Maryland, decided to see if the 19,000 touch-screen machines their state purchased really did save money. The results aren't really a surprise -- the machines are wildly more expensive than anyone anticipated. But just how expensive they are makes their analysis mandatory reading for any legislators and state or county budget committees that approve voting equipment purchases.

Maryland uses one system statewide -- touch-screen machines made by Diebold Election Systems -- which it purchased in batches in 2002 and 2003. A loan of about $67 million was taken out from the state treasury to pay Diebold for the machines, which counties are still paying off. They'll continue to pay for the machines through 2014, even though the state has since decided to scrap the touch-screen machines, due to security concerns, and change to optical-scan machines by 2010.

Nonetheless, according to SaveOurVotes' figures, by the end of the presidential election this year, Maryland will have spent more than $97.5 million on the machines it's abandoning, but only about half of that can be attributed to the actual cost of purchasing the machines.

snip

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/the-cost-of-e-v.html

[stellanoir]

1. Yeah that saved money. . . not

The cost of e-voting = our democracy, our treasury, and any shred that was left whatsoever of truly representative government

as evidenced by and unprecedented 81% of the people thinking we're on the wrong track.

[diva77]

2. Yup, and on top of the cost of the first batch of machines for any jurisdiction is the cost

to replace the machines every 5 years - as told by an elections official. Yet another way devised to funnel our tax dollars to private corporations in obscene amounts while stealing our democracy all at the same time.:argh:

[kster]

3. K&R..nt

[EFerrari]

4. I put it up again because it never seems to sink in, does it?

:kick:

[Wilms]

5. Agreed.

Worse, though, is that the study wants to lend support to Op Scan. I don't mind them pointing out the expense of DREs vs. OpScan, but I wouldn't mind numbers for HCPB.

Oh, well.