RE: the costs

["Paul Tiger - LPBC - Outreach" <LPBC-O@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This biz with number of registered voters in COB is bothersome. The C&R used
to have web pages that showed the registration by city in the past (before
this election). I know because I managed them. I don't know where they've
gone to now, but it is difficult to deduce the number of registered voters
in COB.
If you look at
http://www.co.boulder.co.us/clerk/elect/2004%20General/Frame.htm it shows
number of registered voters in all the cities and districts of the county,
just not COB. You can't simply take the 176224 figure and start subtracting
the other numbers because the city of Boulder is covered by two state
congressional house districts. There's overlap.
We also cannot use the figures from the 03 election, or even the primary in
04. The reason is that the number of registered voters in the entire county
grew by almost 30,000. Even between the primary and the general elections of
04 the number was still increasing.
So far I've had some difficulty getting these numbers from either clerk (COB
or C&R). I have a suspicion that they don't know. Eva had this trouble
before and I don't think that she ever got an answer.
In any case, if you'd asked me in 03 about registrations I would have
challenged the assumption of 70K. Now it is difficult to know, and the clerk
of Boulder isn't much help in this regard.

Since this is a short ballot and bulk mail, I wonder about 67 cents. What is
a royal pain is that new voters are required under state law to return with
their ballot a copy of their photo ID. In 03 this caused many ballots to be
returned to the sender, because they didn't have enough postage on the
envelope. Late voters ended up not getting counted at all, because their
ballots showed up too late after being returned to them and resent.
Many reasons that mail-in balloting is a recipe for disaster, as Al often
points out, but additionally so since the passage of SB102 and the ID
requirement.

I never heard an exclamation of the need for the USPS to deliver for free,
but I certainly knew of ballots that were not delivered at all. You may
recall the debacle over at CU when the university decided that bulk mail
from the clerk's office was junk mail and returned all the postings from the
clerk. Now that was phun. To avoid further USPS mailing charges the rejected
mail was hand carried back to CU and the demand was made that they deliver
clerk's mailings that they failed to deliver before. An argument ensued
because the CU mailroom said that it was no longer USPS mail and that the
clerk was interfering with the mail, which was actually the opposite. It
took the intervention of the Regents to right that wrong, with the continued
whining from the CU mailroom.
Since UCB is a part of the city, I suspect that this will occur again. CU
claims that they reject all bulk mailings, which is complete crap if you
looked in my mailbox at CU.

I can't see how anyone in elections could imagine that the USPS is going to
do anything for free. One thing probably not noted in elections mailings is
the return verification. Undeliverable mail from elections is supposed to be
returned, not forwarded. The USPS charges for this, and I will bet you $20
that they haven't figured in this cost. How could they know what it would
be?

So questions are: if $20K is the figure that I have heard, does it include
USPS mailing; verification returns; and the projected costs of re-mailing
ballots that for whatever reason the USPS doesn't deliver?

You may be right Ralph. It could be closer to your $100K figure than my $20K
figure. In either case I don't think that anyone is going to tell us - fer
sher.

paul



-----Original Message-----
From: Ralph Shnelvar [mailto:ralphs@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Sunday, January 09, 2005 7:41 AM
To: Cvv-Discuss@Coloradovoter. Net
Subject: Re: the costs

Paul:

That may clear the confusion.

Apparently $20K is for the County Clerk's services.  You can't mail out
notices/ballots to 70,000(?) people for $20K.  I'm guessing that mailing
costs are the bulk of the remainder and that the city is picking up that
cost.  I believe - but am not certain - that each piece of mail costs about
$0.67 for postage.

I found it highly amusing that Alisa and/or Linda (I can't remember which)
was "angry" (expressed a strong opinion) that the U.S. Postal Service
"should be delivering these ballots for 'free'."

I wonder how Alisa (or was it Linda?) would react if the Feds turned it
around and demanded that Boulder deliver Federal notices to Boulder
residents "for free."  I guess things are free if it comes out of other
people's budget.

Ralph Shnelvar


On Sat, 8 Jan 2005 23:40:06 -0700, you wrote:

>I haven't spoke the Alisa, but to the BC clerks elections division. The
>figure I heard was "approx $20K". Now this is just for the election itself
>and not matching funds for candidate campaigns.
>
>Never gave any thought to the matching funds bit.
>
>pt
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Ralph Shnelvar [mailto:ralphs@xxxxxxxxx]
>Sent: Saturday, January 08, 2005 5:12 PM
>To: Cvv-Discuss@Coloradovoter. Net
>Subject: Re: the costs
>
>Dear Paul:
>
>On Sat, 8 Jan 2005 14:37:21 -0700, you wrote:
>
>>In one of the few times that I will be noted as in agreement with Ralph
...
>>This is it!
>>
>>Ask voters to protest by not voting - YES!
>>
>>Ralph, before publicizing this you should get your cost facts straight.
The
>>special election in COB should cost about $20K, not $100K. If CVV
>publicizes
>>incorrect information about this cost factor and the clerks involved
>>challenge it with facts showing otherwise, then other parts of the
argument
>>may be lost on the voters.
>
>The $80K to $100K figure was quoted to Joe, Neal, and myself by Alisa.  If
I
>am wrong then I apologize.
>
>Joe and/or Neal, I'm I remembering the dollar amount incorrectly?
>
>Indeed, the number may considerably exceed $100K if there is a run on the
>city's coffers if a lot of candidates seek matching funds.
>>
>>paul
>
>Ralph Shnelvar
>