Teresa
Hommel
www.wheresthepaper.org/RoughCosts.htm
May
12, 2004
Rough Breakdown of Costs
Deployment of new electronic DRE voting systems
The
following cost estimates are standard within the hardware/software industry for
deployment of a large number of PC-type systems.
Two
ways that voting systems will differ are:
(1)
Voting units are deployed and retrieved for every election rather than once.
Due to wear and tear of deployment, units may need to be replaced on a 3-year
cycle (industry standard is usually 4 years in practice).
(2)
Deployment and retrieval of units, and related repair and replacement of units,
significantly increases overhead for management of inventory and control of
hardware/software versions. This expense can reach an estimated 5% of total
cost.
A
probable future cost, not estimated here, will occur when these voting systems are
integrated with other computer systems involved in elections.
If
New York receives a one-time allocation of federal funds, the money must be
divided up so that there is enough per year for operation and support expenses,
as well as replacement of equipment as it ages.
Assuming 60% for systems
and 40% for operations and support, if the money is to support elections for a
three-year period, this is how it may have to be spent:
Estimate
for 3 years, Assuming Total Expenditure of $100 Million
1.
First year
Hardware & Software Components: $30,000,000 (original purchase)
Annual Operations and Support: $16,000,000 (high due to
start-up costs)
2.
Second year
Recurring Annual Operations and
Support $12,000,000
3. Third year
Recurring Annual Operations and
Support $12,000,000
4.
Replacement of hardware/software over 3
year period
Over 3 years, every unit will be
replaced $30,000,000 (same as
original purchase)
Total
Cost of Ownership for 3 years $100,000,000
NOTES
1.
Equipment Acquisition (60%) – Procurement of DRE voting units and associated
hardware and software.
In
the estimate, we used a 3-year replacement cycle. If New York requires a 5-year
warrantee on purchase of the equipment, then the cost of replacing units as they
break will be borne by the vendor for that period. After 5 years the cost of
replacing broken units will need to be borne by New York. Therefore the second
$30 million may not have to be spent until 5 years after initial acquisition of
equipment.
2.
Operations and Support (40%)
a. Delivery, pick-up and storage of
field units
b. Annual Equipment Maintenance (ongoing validation
and check-out of equipment) –
The cost of keeping the systems ready for the next election (these costs
are standard
across all computer technologies).
c. Training & Support
1) Training of field
personnel
2) Onsite technical
support
3) Centralized Help desk
4) End-End dry run at
selected sites (prior to elections)
5) Manuals, security
policies, and operation guidelines
6) Citizen awareness
with distributed training pamphlets
d. Operations
1) Configuration
Management – Record-keeping to keep track of system
configurations,
including auditing. (As units fail and software or hardware is
replaced, some units end up with newer components or
different versions of
software.)
2)
Maintenance of information management systems to keep track of deployment
of equipment and
all aspects of training and support