Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Why $50,000?
A commenter asks where the $50,000 figure for the recall comes from. The figure comes from the amount typically budgeted for spring elections. The idea is that, since all the same polling places and poll workers and advertisements need to be paid for, the cost will be the same. It's not entirely convincing. If the election is less than 3 days, then that's fewer poll worker hours, and if there are fewer poll locations, it's even less. There aren't any rules to answer these questions for special elections, so I would assume that setting the length is up to the Senate, and choosing the number of polling places (beyond the constitutional requirements) will be up to the Elections Council. Depending on how these questions are answered, (and the Judicial Council may have an important ruling on this soon) the cost could be somewhat less than $50,000. I don't, however, know the line-by-line budget of elections, so I couldn't say how much less the cost might be. For example, is paying the Elections Council included in that budget? If so, that's another cost that won't be added (although finding an Elections Council on such short notice may require higher stipends than usual).
Update: Also note that the Elections Council already has a budget. They don't need to wait for the Senate to give them money to put the election together. Instead, they'll need to ask for additional money after the election to run the general election in April.
. . .
|
. . .
|
