State and federal efforts to make elections more accessible over the past decade have also made them considerably more expensive, a Dayton Daily News analysis of state records has found.

Since early voting in Ohio expanded in 2006, boards of election employees — including some salaried directors — have accumulated major overtime hours dealing with additional work leading up to Election Day. Also, citizens increasingly vote digitally, using expensive electronic equipment instead of paper ballots.

In 2008, the first presidential election year that offered both early voting and electronic voting machines, Ohio counties spent $122.4 million on elections, according to Ohio Secretary of State records. That’s compared to the $67.3 million elections cost in 2004, the previous presidential election year.

Due to a decision from Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted that will promote early voting statewide, some elections officials — including Husted himself — think costs may continue to rise this year.

“Unless we want to scale back the conveniences provided to voters in making it more convenient to vote, we’re going to have to bear those costs, and we can only expect those costs to continue to increase,” Husted said.

While Husted last month attempted to end weekend voting, he also ordered boards of election stay open until 7 p.m. on certain weekdays leading up to the election. Many counties, particularly rural ones, had not planned on any extended office hours.

Husted’s office also spent $1.4 million to send out out 6 million envelopes containing absentee ballot applications to registered voters across the state. Another mailing is expected to go out in October. Husted aims to help reduce the Election Day rush by encouraging Ohioans to vote early.

As of last Friday, Ohioans had sent back 475,000 absentee ballot requests, according to Husted’s office.

Aaron Ockerman, executive director of the Ohio Elections Officials Association, said the financial impact of the mass-mailing is an unknown.

“The new factor we’re all trying to get our hands around is this statewide absentee mailing,” Ockerman said. “The counties that have done it have said you can save some money by consolidating precincts (due to shorter lines on Election Day). But if you think about it, getting 20,000 pieces of mail or whatever, that takes a long time for someone just to open all that mail.”

Greene County performed its first county-wide absentee ballot application mailing in 2008, said deputy elections director Llyn McCoy. About one-fourth of Greene County’s 105,000 registered voters ended up voting early, 16,000 by mail.

“Here, it takes two employees all day just to open the mail,” McCoy said. “So these smaller counties where they have only a few employees … they’re not going to have the same volume of votes, but they’re probably going to have to bring people in just to do those kinds of things.”

Miami County elections director Steve Quillen said he’s hired four extra people to help handle mail ballot applications. But he’s been surprised to find so far that volume hasn’t been as high as he’d feared.

“It’s a little slim right now, but it’s basic human nature that everybody waits until the last possible minute. So I could get killed in the last couple weeks before the election,” Quillen said.

OT, voting machines

One of the largest factors for the increase in election costs is the advent of early voting. The Obama campaign heavily promoted early voting in 2008, leading to long lines at elections offices in some counties in the weeks before the election. It also led to spikes in overtime for elections workers, particularly in more populous areas.

Large overtime bills for elections directors in two southwest Ohio counties – Montgomery and Butler – led officials there to end the practice of paying directors extra for work beyond 40 hours a week.

Overtime spending in Montgomery County for elections workers increased from $171,000 in 2004 to $593,000 in 2008, according to county records. That included $74,000 in overtime split between co-directors Steve Harsman and Betty Smith, salaried employees who received overtime for the first time that year. The extra overtime bumped Harsman’s total 2008 compensation to $134,000 and Smith’s to $132,000.

In 2010, overtime in Montgomery decreased to $194,000, but Harsman and Smith worked similar overtime hours, taking home $130,000 and $127,000, respectively.

In Butler County, overtime spending increased from $95,000 in 2004 to $385,000 in 2008. Then-elections director Betty McGary received $23,000 in overtime, while deputy director Lynn Kinkaid made $16,000. With the overtime, McGary made about $107,000 that year and Kinkaid $100,000. Neither received overtime pay in 2010.

Elections officials say early voting in the three days immediately before the election contributed to much of the overtime. Elections workers must update voter rolls each night to reflect who has voted and who hasn’t. In 2008, that resulted in employees in some counties working 30 or 40 hours in a row, elections officials said.

“Our director and deputy director went days without even going home,” Montgomery County Board of Elections member Greg Gantt said of the 2008 election. “We actually brought in cots in the basement and have showers down there, too.”

The Montgomery County Board of Elections voted in 2008 to grant its directors overtime in even years, Gantt said. This year, the elections board voted to end overtime for co-directors, but increased their base pay to $116,000. They also will receive 40 extra hours of comp time.

Gantt said the previously granted overtime was meant to compensate directors for their increased workload, but costs increased more than had been anticipated.

In Butler County, that included $108,000 in overtime the weekend before the election alone, said Kinkaid.

“We had people working around the clock,” he said.

Husted, a Republican, last month attempted to end voting on the Saturday, Sunday and Monday before the election, as well as put an end to all weekend early voting statewide. A federal judge, ruling on a lawsuit from the Obama campaign, subsequently reinstated voting in the final days before the election.

Democrats estimated that 93,000 Ohio voters cast ballots during the three days before the 2008 presidential election. Several studies found those voters were more likely to be African-American or earn lower incomes — groups that often vote for Democrats.

Ellis Jacobs, a longtime voting rights activist, said offering the public the opporutnity to vote in the waning days of election season is important, even if it’s expensive. He said polls have shown it’s also popular.

“The weekend before the election is the weekend when people have the most information about the issues and candidates, and they feel the most comfortable with and capable of voting,” Jacobs said. “The fact that so many people take advantage of it should be a signal to us that it’s worth the cost.”

The other main reason for the growing costs of elections is voting machines. The federal government between 2003 and 2007 spent $1.2 billion on voting machines, according to McClatchy Newspapers. Ohio counties spent millions more. The upgrades were in part a response to controversy over the contested 2000 presidential elections that coined the term “hanging chads” of Florida.

But voting machines aren’t just one-time costs. They require software updates, maintenance and regular calibration. Over the next few election cycles, the machines will need to be replaced. And licensing fees that had been locked in at a discount for five years will increase next year.

Other factors making elections costlier include the increase in minimum wage and post-election audits that settled one of many lawsuits over the voting process in Ohio.

This year’s tab

It won’t be clear how much this year’s election will cost until the smoke clears. Some large counties that beefed up their elections budgets in 2008 are budgeting that costs actually will go down this year. Technological advances and lessons learned from 2008 also will allow fewer workers to do more work, officials said.

Butler County commissioners earlier this year allocated another $1 million toward election costs, bringing their total budget to $3.7 million for the year. That’s still less than the $4.4 million the county spent in 2008.

“We think the cost will be less (this year, compared to 2008),” said Kinkaid, Butler County’s elections director. “Or at least we’re certainly hoping it will.”

Montgomery County has budgeted $3.3 million for this year’s election, compared to $4.7 million in 2008.

Harsman said the lessons of 2008 have helped the elections board make adjustments for a more efficient operation. He said Montgomery County still runs elections at a cheaper cost per voter than other metropolitan counties in Ohio.

But due to the hotly contested nature of Ohio’s elections, complete with multiple pending lawsuits and legal challenges, expensive changes are still possible. For instance, the Ohio Supreme Court recently ordered additional ballot language for State Issue 2.

The resulting lengthier language will mean thousands of ballots in Montgomery County will be three pages rather than two, Harsman said. Plus, voting equipment must now be reprogrammed with the new language.

“One decision in changing language … means $100,000 to $125,000 in additional costs,” Harsman said.