Costs to Store and Test DRE's and OpScans?

[truckin]

Does anyone have access to the annual costs to store DREs and OpScans or the costs to test each individual DRE or Opscan machine or know where to look on the web to get this information? Any actual costs experienced by states like Georgia or Florida or any other states would be greatly appreciated and extremely helpful. I am trying to put together a comparison of the costs to run elections using DREs verse OpScans in CT. Thanks in advance to anyone with any information about this.

[liam_laddie]

1. three times more expensive

Somewhere, maybe on DU, I recall a post saying this - 3x.
Comparison may be to punch-card systems, not certain, but
I do know that someone posted this....sorry for my vagueness...

[FogerRox]

2. here

the Mythbreakers PDF:


http://www.votersunite.org/MB2.pdf



DRE's cost $3000.00 to $3500.00 ---w/o printer
ONE DRE can process up to 10 ballots/hr

OPscans cost $5000.00
ONE opscan can process up to 360 ballots/hr

So you would have to spend about 100 grand on DRE's to process 360 ballots/hr

If you dont keep the batteries charged between elections the batteries die--and need to be replaced. Have you ever bought a new battery for a laptop? They start about $100 & go to $200.

When you use DRE's you still have to print paper absentee ballots and spare ballots because DRE's freeze up (MSwindows)or stop working, so election officials still to print a significant number of paper ballots.

Between pages 58 to 60 on the PDF.

[liam_laddie]

5. clarification

The three times (annual) cost comparison refers to the overall operating expense, which would include maintenance, tech support, software upgrades (watch out!), consumables, etc.
I can't imagine that DRE's process only ten voters/hour. That's
six minutes each voter. The timespan would depend largely on
the ballot length, right? So, maybe...
The punch-card systems' main problem is the under/over vote
issue. I think many voters simply choose not to vote in certain
races, so I believe undervotes are intentional and not a machine or human-factor error. Over-votes ARE a human-factor problem;
in my county, if the voter spoils the first card, they have two more chances to complete an accurate card. Three tries total. Better
voter education would help diminish this.

[Bill Bored]

3. I don't think you CAN test a DRE.

Unless you want to pay someone to stand there and vote all day to make sure none of 'em are being recorded incorrectly. Figure the cost as one person-day per DRE! Otherwise, you'll have to use the built in logic and accuracy test which doesn't use the actual ballot the voters will use. In THAT case, the machine is "testing" itself, but that's not a real test, is it?

[FogerRox]

4. Right--there is no under/over vote Seqouia says @ web site IIRC

Every other voting system has a know rate of spoilage. except for DRE's

Cause your ballot floats off into the ether to "planet X"

And no one lives on planet X to count the ballots that land there.

[Bill Bored]

6. Well, my point was that nobody can actually test them as you can by

running hand-marked ballots through the Op Scans over and over again. You have to stand in front of the DRE ALL DAY entering votes to make sure the machine is counting them, just as the voters have to do to cast their votes on election day. With the Op Scan, the ballots are just scanned one right after the other.

It's like comparing real-time transaction processing (DRE) to a batch job (Op Scan). Which would you rather test for logic and accuracy? The only way to test the real-time system is, well, in REAL TIME!

[truckin]

7. Election Day Costs

What are the ongoing election day costs for DREs and OpScans? According to an article in the Miami Herald, it cost $6.6M for the November 2004 election more than 3 times the cost of running previous elections in Miami-Dade County.

Some of the major cost elements are:

Programming machines
Setting up equipment
Printing back up, absentee & provisional ballots

Has anyone done a comparison of the costs to run an election using DREs and compared those costs to the costs using OpScan? Assuming OpScan is considerably less, which is a pretty safe assumption, this would be great information to share with local municipalities who will be burdened with these costs long after HAVA funds have been spent. The extra costs are so great in Miami-Dade County that they are looking into scrapping the DREs, which they paid $24.5M for, because of the substantially higher costs to run each election.

So if anyone has any specific historical cost information from states like GA & FL that have used DREs extensively, please share them. If we can show that DREs will cost cities and towns much more money to run elections it will help to stop states like NY and CT from purchasing the DREs in the first place. I have contacted officials in Miami-Dade County about the costs that they incurred and if I get any information I will share it here.

[FogerRox]

8. yes-paper ballots--to be used in an opscan-- to neo cons

is like garlic to a vampire

VOtersunite IIRC has a series of PDF's that list problems by vendor.
The Seqouia PDF has a great one--

A single question was on tha ballot--nutin else-- a county level referendum---255 folks drove to vote signed in-- went into the booth---never voted yes or no--on a ballot with one item.

Would be Fuckin funny as hell if it wasnt true

[Wilms]

9. kick n/t