County voting woes, by the numbers

Sidebar 2, Paper ballots: Cure or catastrophe?

$1.5 million -- Cost of Cuyahoga County’s recently signed lease for 15 optical scanners for 2008 primary.

$21 million -- Cost of the discarded Diebold electronic voting system Cuyahoga County purchased in 2006.

15,000 -- Number of absentee ballots which had to be counted by hand in the 2006 primary due to problems with optical scanning.

5 -- Number of days hand-scanning of absentee ballots delayed the county’s primary results

20 -- Percentage of all polling places that opened late on day of 2006 primary

16 -- Number of polling places court-ordered to stay open until 9 p.m. due to late openings and long lines in the 2006 general election.

1,400 -- Number of voters CCBOE erroneously de-registered for Nov. 2006 election due to problems with voter registration software.

12,000 -- Number of voters who cast ballots without properly verifying their eligibility in 2006 general election.

533 -- Number of precincts (out of 570) in which voters cast ballots without verifying eligibility.

5,000 - number of different absentee ballots the CCBOE must have ready to mail out on Feb. 8

300,000 -- Number of Cuyahoga County voters expected to turn out to vote on Mar. 4, 2008.

Sources: The Cuyahoga Election Review Panel report; the Election Science Institute report; the Public Monitor of Cuyahoga Election Reform report; The Plain Dealer; AP reports; Election Law@ Moritz.

See also:
•Main story: Paper ballots: cure or catastrophe?
•Sidebar 1: ES&S v. Diebold: The devil you know, or the devil you don't know (02/08/08)
•Sidebar 3: Voter ID laws affect nursing home residents(02/08/08)
•Previously : Paper ballots before March: Cure or cause for more grief? (01/25/08)