The 2020 election is the most expensive one ever in Montgomery County and will surpass the originally budgeted $3.5 million by almost $2 million, writes Tom Lisi for the WHYY.

And that does not even include the additional $2.3 million that was spent on mail-ballot equipment. For running 2021’s elections, the county’s budget is providing for $4.4 million.

The situation is similar in all counties across the state. One of the main culprits for these unexpectedly high election costs is overtime. Some counties have found their overtime costs to be four times more than usual.

Another factor that drove the costs up is mail voting that has been implemented by the Commonwealth for the first time. A record 2.6 million people voted that way, with the pandemic driving up demand for mail voting and with that the costs.

“It was really a perfect storm this year,” said Lisa Schaefer, executive director of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania.

The full financial impact of the election throughout the state will not be known before next year as most of the counties will work well into 2021 to tally up election expenses.

Read more about the election cost at the WHYY by clicking here.