Reply #31: Working on details! Sorry I just saw your post. [View All]

[pkanalyst]

Here is info on Lucas county from May, 2004 (13abc.com)
I will look for the recent news story

Decision Split on Voting Machines
The machines would cost Lucas County more than $1,400,000.
Lucas County's Board of Elections is trying to make sure workers don't repeat the mistakes of the March primary. Republican Sam Thurber believes touch screen machines would give Lucas County voters the most confidence for least cost, provided you get a hard copy printout verifying how you vote. Three weeks from that deadline, it's not clear what touch screen printouts would cost.

The machines themselves would cost Lucas County more than $1,400,000. Plan B calls for paper ballots using optical scanners. That would cost more than $300,000 for November's election alone. Board members split along party lines, so Ohio's secretary of state will decide.

Republicans claim that waiting to buy touch-screen machines until after the secretary of state certifies them could give workers too little time to work out any bugs before the election. Democrats insist the machines need the seal of approval first.


This was the more recent story on nbc24.com

YOU PAID FOR IT: Freedom is Anything But Free
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(Toledo, OH) --- This may be the land of the free, but upholding the ideals of this country is anything but free. You trekked out in the rain, you stood in line and you paid for it.

Some of the costs of this last election are to be expected -- printing, postage and communications. For example, the Lucas County Board of Elections ordered up 300 extra cell phones for poll workers. Your cost for that? Seventy-five hundred dollars. But county officials say they can't estimate a cost right now for the two-thousand temporary poll workers that were hired.

In fact there is still a lot of uncertainty. Board officials say they're not sure exactly how much you paid for this election. They won't know that for weeks.

"Probably we'll know when we finally put this election to bed," said Paul Hicks-Hudson, director of the board.

Events along the campaign trail had their effect here at home. One factor was independent candidate Ralph Nader. First he was in, then Ohio's Secretary of State determined he was out. The board had to reprint 81 thousand ballots at a cost to you of $30 thousand dollars.

Then, to make sure Lucas County wasn't the Palm Beach County of 2004, officials tried to buy touch screen voting machines. But Secretary of State Ken Blackwell voted no on that idea, leaving the county to lease optical scan machines for $310 thousand dollars. But the board defends those unforeseen costs.

"What's the price of freedom?" asked Hicks Hudson.

by: Tom Bosco