Costs continue to mount for Shasta County to do a full hand count of ballots in future elections.
It’s now expected to exceed $1.5 million — about three times more than if the county would have kept its contract with Dominion Voting Systems and continued with electronic ballot tabulations.
And the price tag will probably go up more as county election officials continue to work on the number of ballot counters and poll workers that will be needed to do a secure hand count.
After they approved earlier this month spending $950,000 on equipment needed to hand-count ballots, supervisors on Tuesday will be asked to adopt a salary resolution that adds five positions in the elections department and two in support services.
In a report to supervisors, the estimated annual cost for the seven positions is $600,962, which includes benefits. Most of that money will come from the county’s general fund with the balance coming from agencies that the county bills for each election.
That the cost to hand-count all ballots in Shasta County is expected to exceed $1 million should not be a surprise to supervisors.
Opting to manually count ballots in an election could set the county back more than $1.6 million, Registrar of Voters Cathy Darling Allen wrote in a 26-page analysis on hand-counting that she released to the public in which she urged leaders to reject a system that has not been tested anywhere in California.
More:Will Shasta County’s plan to hand count votes meet election law, disability access rules?
Darling Allen also said the effort would require hiring 1,300 workers to help with the tally and renting a facility that’s large enough to carry out the work securely.
“We still need poll workers, that is workers to staff the precincts on election day for in-person voting. We will also need to recruit counting staff. Unlike electronic tabulation, we will estimate those needs per election based on the number of contests on the ballot and expected turnout,” Darling Allen wrote in an email to the Record Searchlight.
While Darling Allen won’t be giving the presentation to supervisors on Tuesday, she will there to answer questions. The presentation also will include estimated costs for forthcoming expenses related to the hand-count process.
Darling Allen told the Record Searchlight that at this time she does not have an estimate on costs.
“The presentation will offer some numbers tomorrow, but there are still unknowns at this time,” she said.
Shasta County still doesn’t know if its plan to hand count votes will be certified by the Secretary of State.
“We anticipate seeing a public version of the draft regulations very soon; they will be available for public comment through the rule-making process,” Darling Allen said.
Meanwhile, the notion of election denier and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell helping Shasta County with the cost to implement a hand count may have taken a hit.
Multiple news sources reported last week that Lindell was ordered to pay $5 million to a man who refuted his data related to the 2020 election. Lindell has received national attention for his unfounded conspiracy theories about the election.
The Associated Pres said Lindell was ordered to pay a software engineer in the election dispute over Lindell’s claims that Chinese interference won the election for President Joe Biden.
The story said Robert Zeidman entered Lindell’s “Prove Mike Wrong Challenge” by providing a 15-page report that said Lindell’s data did not “contain packet data of any kind and do not contain any information related to the November 2020 election.”
Supervisor Kevin Crye flew to Minneapolis, Minnesota, in early March to meet with Lindell about going to a full hand count of ballots. He said Lindell had offered financial support after coming back from the controversial trip.
Crye has repeatedly declined to say how much money Lindell had agreed to commit, or why he was seeking election advice from someone who is also being sued by Dominion Voting Systems, which alleges $1.2 billion damages to its brand for alleged defamatory comments Lindell repeatedly made about the company, according to USA TODAY.
In late January, Shasta County supervisors voted 3-2 to terminate the county’s contract with Dominion, which now has the county turning back the clock to hand-counted ballots, something that hasn’t been done by a major county in a statewide federal election since the 1960s.
The cost to the county to keep Dominion over the next two fiscal years would have been $524,000.
Last week, Fox News settled a defamation lawsuit with Dominion for $787.5 million. Dominion sued Fox, claiming the media giant knowingly broadcast lies being pushed by Donald Trump and his allies after his 2020 election loss.
Tuesday’s Shasta County supervisors meeting starts at 9 a.m.
David Benda covers business, development and anything else that comes up for the USA TODAY Network in Redding. He also writes the weekly “Buzz on the Street” column. He’s part of a team of dedicated reporters that investigate wrongdoing, cover breaking news and tell other stories about your community. Reach him on Twitter @DavidBenda_RS or by phone at 1-530-338-8323. To support and sustain this work, please subscribe today.
