According to Michael Drucker’s The Independent View, only 20,749 Republican voters voted in the April 24 presidential primary within New York city. The only party that had a presidential primary in New York this year was the Republican Party. The cost of administering the presidential primary within New York city, divided by the number of voters who participated, works out to $578.34 per vote cast.
How many poll workers fell asleep ???
Guess what – ALL mail ballots.
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
ONE election.
Spend govt $$$ on something productive.
Even if every single registered Republican had voted, it would have cost $27 per vote.
Being that this was New York, there was probably a union contract to hire union workers to move mechanical behemoths to each polling place, even though they have been replaced, by much smaller electronic devices.
New York should consolidate voting precincts and provide limousine service from each ordinary polling place. They could hire a valet to stand out front and call the limousine.
Better yet, use mail ballots.
How many precincts in NY City ???
How much did each precinct worker get paid ???
I.E. — even about 1 to 3 R voters per precinct on average ???
Did the precinct workers have pillows and beds while waiting for the R voters to show up ???
I voted for Ron Paul at 10am, and I was the first at my ED. Poll workers get paid $200 per day, plus $35 bonus for working BOTH primary and November and $25 for the class in July. I was paid $460 in 2006. $25 million is cheap to live in a democracy/republic. Would you rather vote for Putin or Castro? I hope that Ron Paul is Mitt Romney’s buget director next year. I voted for Ron Paul in 1988, but Libertarians lost me with the Gulf War.
It’s much worse than a “union job”, since you must be a Republican or Democrat (half and half) in order to get the job. There are exceptions but only when D’s and R’s can’t be found. Primaries are considerably easier to work in New York than general elections because of the limited hours. Primaries generally only run from Noon to 9PM, while general elections run from 6AM to 9PM.
#6 NYC has about 6550 election districts. If the $12 million figure in the story is believed, that is $1832 per election district. How many pollworkers are needed?
It also means that the average election district has 66 enrolled Republicans, and an average of 3.12 voters for the primary.
In Texas, the party runs the primary, but is paid by the state, and there is an expectation that they be run efficiently. If voting sites had been consolidated to 1 per 500 enrolled Republicans, the cost would have been around $1.6 million.