Report details mail-in voting postage, printing costs

AP FILE PHOTO/STEVN SENNE AP FILE PHOTO/STEVN SENNE
Published: 12-30-2024 7:56 PM |
Just less than half of the roughly 3.5 million voters who cast a ballot in November’s elections here did so in person on Election Day, Secretary of State William Galvin’s office said in a new report on the roughly $8 million costs associated with the popular vote-by-mail option.
The report filed with the Legislature in December details many of the costs connected to Galvin’s responsibilities as chief elections officer for the state, and the requirements of the 2022 law that allows voters to cast their ballots by mail or during a dedicated early voting window.
Not counting the costs of printing ballots and envelopes, assembling ballot kits and reimbursing local election officials for unfunded mandates, Galvin said the vote-by-mail effort cost a little more than $8 million ($8,005,676.43 to be precise), including nearly $2 million in postage for voters to return ballots, for the September primaries and November’s general election.
There were 841,940 total ballots cast in the September primaries, voter turnout of 16.7%. Galvin’s office said 520,056 of those votes, or 61.8%, were cast by mail, while 28,908, or 3.4%, were placed in person during the early voting period. There were 292,976 votes, or 34.8%, cast in polling places on Sept. 3.
The popularity of mail-in voting became more apparent during the November general election, when 3,512,930 voters or 68.3% submitted a ballot. Just fewer than half of the votes cast in those elections, 1,712,795 or 48.8%, were submitted in person at a polling place on Nov. 5, Galvin’s office said. Meanwhile 1,203,106 votes, or 34.2%, were cast by mail and 597,029, or 17%, of ballots were submitted in person during early voting.
Postage was the largest expense category, Galvin’s office said, with $1,904,016.75 being charged against the 352 separate USPS Business Reply Mail (BRM) accounts maintained by the Elections Division (one master account and one subaccount for each of the 351 municipal elections departments) to cover the cost of ballots submitted by mail between July and December, plus another $326,430 to pay annual permit renewal fees for those BRM accounts.
The report also says that it cost $965,192 to print the 3.85 million ballot-by-mail applications that are required to be sent to voters by July, plus more than $2 million in outgoing postage to send those applications to voters. The second round of applications, sent between the primaries and general, cost almost $885,000 to print and another $1.9 million to send out with postage, Galvin’s office said.
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