Earlier this month, the Auburn University and The Election Center released the findings of the Investing in Elections project that surveyed Election Center members about office operations, methods of election and resources.
“The differences between budget, lead staff salaries, and cost per registered voter between mail ballot jurisdictions and all other jurisdictions in our sample are statistically significant. The budget and cost per registered voter figures are significantly greater in the mail ballot only jurisdictions,” wrote brief authors Kathleen Hale and Mitchell Brown.
Based on the survey respondents, Hale and Brown determined that the median cost per registered voter for mail ballot only elections is $12.20.
“On balance, these data indicate that the jurisdictions in our sample using mail ballot only methods are operating in environments with larger budgets overall. This suggests that jurisdictions that are not currently all mail ballot jurisdictions are at a comparative resource disadvantage to those that do. This has implications for resource outlays in legislative and administrative decision-making for moving to an all vote-by-mail model,” the authors wrote.
In the Vote at Home Scale Plan, the National Vote at Home Institute estimated that it would cost a state like Michigan, $37,850,00 to implement a centralized plan and includes all that is needed to mail every voter a ballot, the operational costs to process them, and infrastructure updates.
The Brennan Center has also released a report on the Estimated Costs of Covid-19 Election Resiliency Measures which focuses on a number of measures to make the November 2020 election safe including expanding absentee/vote-by-mail. In their report Brennan estimates it will cost between $982 million–$1.4 billion nationwide.
“In this moment, everyone is asking what the costs would be in November with scaling up to VBM,” Democracy Fund’s Patrick said. “Here are some of the items to consider as states evaluate their needs: for outbound processes:”
Ballot application average materials and costs
- $.15 postcard
- $.50 postage outbound & return business reply mail
- $.10 time stamping & scanning
- $.25 application data entry (60 an hour at $15hr average)
Ballot packet
- $.30 per ballot card (if jurisdiction using paper ballot at the polls, this cost would be same under either system)
- $.15 per envelope (2-3 depending on privacy sleeve requirement)
- $.10 per insert
- $1.00-$6.00 postage (depending on class of service, mailing preparation, bulk discounts, round trip, etc.)
Processing costs vary widely if automated or manual process
- $1.50 automation processing (via vendor support or insertion/sorting equipment)
- $15-$20 if entirely manual process
“Review existing costs and contracts,” Patrick advised. “Don’t simply scale up existing — adopt best practices so you are scaling solutions rather than previous problems that didn’t come to light due to small volume. There is a cost to business as usual…”