'Blow the whistle': Indiana's top election official spends $35k on security guide mailings

[RandySF]

You’ve got mail!

Hundreds of election administrators, lawmakers, law enforcement officers and others across Indiana — and beyond— slit open heavy white cardboard boxes this spring to uncover glossy election security guides from the state’s top election official, Secretary of State (SOS) Diego Morales.

“Blow the whistle on election interference,” the thick, spiral-bound books read. They’re accompanied by whistles strung on lanyards.

The 180-page document, per SOS spokeswoman Lindsey Eaton, is “a new addition to the library of election guides produced and distributed by the state for election administrators.”

Assembling and shipping 600 guides cost a whopping $35,070. That’s $58.45 each.




https://indianacapitalchronicle.com/2024/05/17/blow-the-whistle-indianas-top-election-official-spends-35k-on-security-guide-mailings/

[haele]

1. For a quality glossy "book" manual and a good whistle, that's about right.

This isn't a class syllabus put out by your college professor.
The cost you see includes the bid and contracts to make the guide (because they probably didn't have the tech writers to do it in house), prep meetings, research and editing and reviews by officials. It's not just the cost to have someone type up and print a PowerPoint, take it to the local Quick-e print and office supply store at 50¢ a page, get cheap plastic whistles bulk off Amazon, toss them in a USPS mailer and send them off.
I've had to manage the development and delivery of just two sets of spiral bound tech manuals, about 140 pages of 8 1/2 x11 and 11x17 heavyweight with a printed plastic cover to just one ship. It cost $15k, from the start of development to the ship receiving them.
Between the research involved and the quality printing for something that's expected to be maintained is expensive. And it's sad the head of elections felt they had to do this.

Haele