Grant Oversight Committee

We’d like to welcome you all to the election costs database project – which some of you are already familiar with. We thought it might be helpful to provide some additional info in the form of some Frequently Asked Questions – with answers, of course. We’ve also included the spreadsheets you can use to prepare for answering the surveys – it is really helpful.

Also, we wanted to make sure that you know that if you don’t have the level of detail the survey is asking for – we still want the information that you DO have. It is ok to have blanks. Please feel free to ask questions of Karin, Edita or Jaime at (510) 642-9086 – or you can call Cathy Allen Darling at 530.225.5166.

* Why are you collecting this data?

CACEO applied for and was awarded a grant from the James Irvine Foundation to collect information about how much elections cost in California. Collecting costs from counties is the main function of this project. Once data is collected, we can start working on the analysis of the information. Having a deep history of this data will allow us to have hard data when talking to legislators about new ideas (bills) for policy and process changes in election administration. It will also be a useful tool to learn from each other – most of us in elections are not CPAs, and we hope to increase knowledge and skill level in counties around this topic.

* Is my county legally required to complete this survey?

All the information we are asking for is data that was created with tax dollars. As such, I believe that it is all public data – and of course, we want your help in interpreting it. That’s the best way for each of us to be sure that our cost data is accurately reported. CACEO is running this project and owns it entirely – so we will control when and how information is released.

* What is the direct benefit to my county for filling out this survey?

Arming our Legislative Committee chairs with concrete cost data can only help all counties, when it comes to advising our friends in Sacramento about how much the newest, greatest idea to change elections could cost. We can get to that place by getting this information from each county. Also, having control over this project means we get to supervise the analysis and how the information is released – and giving us the opportunity to educate the media about this topic, as well as other stakeholders in the election community.

 * When should I have the survey completed by?

     - Please enter all available data for at least one election by Friday, January 16th, 2015.
     - Please enter all available data for all elections (back to 2004 only) by Friday, March 20th, 2015.

Direct Election Cost spreadsheet

Election Profile spreadsheet