Clerk Provides Further Clarification On Election Costs

Crawford County Clerk John Martin provided further clarification on election costs in an email provided to the Independent News on Thursday.

Martin was questioned on June 11 over Crawford County 911’s charge for the April 2019 election.

The clerk broke down the costs of the election and how it is divided among taxing entities in the county. 

“The entire cost of the election is added up, then each entity is invoiced based upon the percentage of registered voters in the district to the total number of voters participating,” he wrote.

He said that April elections are not “county” elections and that it costs the county nothing to hold an election unless it has something on the ballot.

“During April my office acts as a host to anyone who wishes to place an item on a ballot in any given district,” Martin wrote. “This not only includes statutorily mandated elections for municipalities, but also for any other taxing district.”

Martin said the cost for April elections run about the same for any other type of election. 

The cost includes ballot printing, freight for shipping ballots, rental of polling places, poll worker pay and mileage, election judge pay, programming of tabulators, editing and programming of ballot layouts, delivery and set-up at polling places, equipment rental, postage for absentee ballots, envelopes printed for absentee ballots, polling place supplies and publication of ballots in local newspapers.

“These things are tallied and split among the entities having ballot measures according to the amount of eligible voters for any given ballot issue,” Martin said. “It is a direct reimbursement of our costs for the above items. These items don’t fluctuate much from election to election, unless there is a hotly contested race or a ton of stuff on the ballot.”

In that case, Martin said, the county uses more poll workers, more ballots are printed because of the potential increase in turnout and programming costs rise.

Martin said no taxing entities are charged for maintenance and cleaning, costs for software upgrades and the computer that reads the tabulator cards, transport costs, annual licensing payments, postage, staff time and costs of replacing other election equipment.

“Our polling booths and federally-mandated ADA printers need replacing,” Martin said. “Also, the equipment currently in use has a shelf life of about eight years; we’ve had them for four already. The county paid for this equipment at a time when the county general revenue was in dire straits and the local entities were paying NOTHING in the way of rental on equipment.”

Martin wrote that if more entities have something on a ballot, the less the bill will be for each entity.

“Using E-911 as the obvious example, in the April election they had 33.7346 percent of possible ballots to be cast. There were 12 entities, including E-911, for this election.

“In the April 2018 election there were 18 entities to split nearly the same amount of charges,” he wrote. “The highest percentage there was for the county, with 38.5790 percent; which, I might add was charged to the commission and paid by them as reflected in the budget, because even the commission is on the hook to pay for its elections.”

Martin said the county does not get reimbursed by the state or the feds for August or November elections at all.

“We get a modicum of fees reimbursed for the presidential preference primary,” he wrote.

Martin said he spoke to Crawford County 911 Director Brad England during the recess and suggested looking into whether it can have an appointed board rather than an elected board.

“Failing that, they might change their by-laws to ensure they have their seats and issues on an August or November ballot in order to guarantee shared costs,” Martin wrote.