Suffolk County
Purchase Costs, PBOS versus DREs*
(last update
1/18/06)
Judie Gorenstein is a vice president and voter chairperson of the Huntington League of Women Voters. She is also on the board and an elected director of the Suffolk County League of Women Voters.
To create the reports below, Ms. Gorenstein obtained data from the Board of Elections in Suffolk County on December 9, 2005:
--the list of poll sites per township and the Election Districts (EDs) at each poll site, and
--the list of how many lever machines were delivered for each Election District.
Five different reports have been created, which differ in what prices or replacement ratio were used.
The reports show that DREs cost two to three times more than PBOS.
The reports using ES&S prices announced on 11/21/05 also calculate how many new units of equipment that need ballot-programming would be required for the PBOS or DRE solution:
Countywide, using a replacement ratio of one Optical Scanner and one Ballot Marker per each 5 levers in the same poll site, or one DRE per lever, for each 100 DREs required, only 60 PBOS units are required (30 optical scanners and 30 ballot markers).
Countywide, using a replacement ratio of one Optical Scanner and one Ballot Marker per each 4 levers in the same poll site, or one DRE per lever, for each 100 DREs required, approximately 70 PBOS units are required.
Several transitional and continuing costs will be proportional to the number of new units purchased, which is fewer if PBOS is selected.
One-time costs that would be proportionally lower for PBOS (because fewer workers would be required because fewer PBOS units would need to be handled) include:
1. Training workers to take the new systems out of their shipping cartons and perform acceptance tests on each unit.
2. Receipt of new systems and acceptance tests on each unit.
3. Training workers to program the units and to perform Logic and Accuracy tests
Continuing costs that would be proportionally lower for PBOS because there would be fewer units:
1. Programming each unit for each election.
2. Logic and Accuracy tests on each unit prior to each election.
3. Storage of units.
4. Transportation to and from poll sites for each election.
5. Collection and processing of end-of-election-day tally printouts (because one Optical Scanner can handle up to 5 EDs)
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*DREs All discussion of DREs on this page and in these reports is for full-face DREs. Full-face DREs cost more per unit than small "paging DREs" that show only one contest per screen. HOWEVER, many more paging DREs are needed to serve the same number of voters, due to the longer time needed for one voter to enter their ballot choices (as much as 10-25 minutes in other jurisdictions). Thus the purchase cost of paging DREs may be much greater than that of full-face DREs. The proportional transition and continuing cost of using paging DREs will be higher: for example, if two paging DREs would be needed instead of one full-face DRE, proportional costs would be twice as much.
Poll sites listed
Replacement factor 5
Prices used had been published in various newspapers in New York State as of April 2005:
Optical Scanner $5500
Ballot Marker (Automark) $5000
Privacy Booth $160
DRE $8000
Accessible DRE $11,500.
Poll sites NOT listed
replacement factor 4
Prices used were quoted by Sequoia on Oct. 20, 2005 (note that Automark is not sold by
Sequoia, but they claimed to know its price):
Optical Scanner $5000
Ballot Marker (Automark) $7500
Privacy Booth $200
Accessible DRE $8000.
Poll sites NOT listed
Replacement factor 5
Prices used were quoted by Sequoia on Oct. 20, 2005 (note that Automark is not sold by Sequoia, but they claimed to know its price):
Optical Scanner $5000
Ballot Marker (Automark) $7500
Privacy Booth $200
Accessible DRE $8000.
Poll sites NOT listed
Replacement factor 4
Includes total units needed
Prices used were quoted by ES&S at the New York City Council hearing by the Governmental Operations Committee, Nov. 21, 2005:
Optical Scanner $5500
Ballot Marker (Automark) $5500
DRE lowest projected cost $9000
DRE highest projected cost $10,000.
Cost of the Privacy Booth was not discussed at the hearing; $160 was used.
Poll sites NOT listed
Replacement factor 5
Includes total units needed
Prices used were quoted by ES&S at the New York City Council hearing by the Governmental Operations Committee, Nov. 21, 2005:
Optical Scanner $5500
Ballot Marker (Automark) $5500
DRE lowest projected cost $9000
DRE highest projected cost $10,000.
Cost of the Privacy Booth was not discussed at the hearing; $160 was used.