San Joaquin Supervisor Larry Ruhstaller last month took a stand for common sense. OK, his vote against a lease agreement to store the county’s unused and unusable electronic voting machines was Quixotesque. But at least he voiced his outrage.
The county spends $12,400 a month – $148,800 a year – to rent a warehouse to store the machines. The machines aren’t good enough for the general public. They’ve been decertified because it’s feared they can be hacked. So why does the county keep the 1,625 machines around?
While they’re not good enough for every voter, apparently they’re good enough for disabled voters. Each election the machines are used to tally about 300 votes spread among about 400 polling places countywide. The machines are used by voters who, for various reasons, can’t use paper ballots.
That means in addition to storing the machines, the county pays about $1,250 per machine to haul them to each precinct, charge and program them and manage their memory. That costs about $500,000 extra per countywide election.
Full Article: Adding to election costs | Recordnet.com.