Handcount Labor, Time, and Cost Calculator

The spreadsheet program that generates reports like the one pictured below, was developed by Dave Berman and the Voter Confidence Committee of Humboldt County, CA, in collaboration with Nancy Tobi and Democracy for New Hampshire. This calculator provides a practical way to size up the labor, time, and cost likely required to hand count an election, given knowledge of basic parameters such as number of expected voters and number of contests/Issues on the ballot.

Want to see what the calculator says for your county? Click here to download the Calculator (runs on Excel).

To keep current with the latest version of the application click here.

Click here to download handcount time and cost projections for each of 16 New York state counties, estimated for the coming 2008 presidential election when New York ballots will have two federal contests on the ballot (office of president, and member, U.S. House of Representatives).

Click here to read about the Justice Department HAVA compliance lawsuit against New York State and the amicus brief filed by EDA proposing hand-counting of ballots, rather than DRE machines, to fulfill the HAVA accessibility requirements.