This article has been corrected throughout to correct an error in the calculations. The graph was also updated. (January 23, 2025 at 9:53am.)
A second update was made on January 24, 2025 to correct an error in the graph.
The high cost of the 2024 municipal elections has raised eyebrows across the city among the voters and political observers. Through the January 15 reports, the candidates running for mayor and the six open city council seats spent $2.2 million on their campaigns on November 2024. Four of the mayoral candidates spent $1.5 million combined. Candidates reported $293,725.38 in outstanding loans to their campaigns. All the campaign loans were made by the candidates for their own campaigns.
For the open city council seats, the costliest race was the District 1 seat. Four of the candidates spent a total of $227,604.34. The least expensive district was District 2 where the two candidates spent a combined $65,425.54. District 2 was followed by District 3. The three candidates reported expenses of $70,400.62.
In every city council race, the candidate that spent the most in 2024 won the seat.
Although the totals are frequently used to understand campaign expenditures, another important metric to consider is how much each vote costs each candidate.
El Paso News tabulated the cost per vote for each of the city council candidates in the last election using the amount they reported spending and dividing that amount by the number of votes the candidate received.
Although several candidates did not file campaign finance reports because they did not meet the required amount needed to report, one candidate stood out because of the number of votes they received. Jose Rodriguez, who ran for the District 3 seat won by Deanna Maldonado-Rocha, did not report any campaign expenditures and did not visibly campaign, suggesting that he ran on the name recognition of the former state senator with the same name. Rodriguez received 7,584 votes. In November, Rodriguez received 5,862 votes and in the runoff election, he received 1,722 votes.
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To add context to the city council cost per vote, we looked at the amounts spent by presidential candidates. According to a Wallstreet Journal video in 2020, Elizabeth Warren spent $45.18 per vote in 2020. Bernie Sanders spent $22.73 per vote during the same period.
The costs per vote for presidential candidates have steadily increased. An MIT study in 2017, found that Jimmy Carter spent $2.42 (adjusted for inflation) in 1976. In 1996, Bill Clinton spent $4.28 per vote. Barack Obama spent $13.41 per vote in 2008.
Taxpayer Costs Per Vote
The candidates are not the only ones incurring costs per vote. The County Elections Department had operating expenses of $6,632,067 in fiscal year 2024, up from $1,818,821 in 2023. Taking the 2024 value and dividing it by the number of voters who voted in 2024 gives us an estimated cost of about $19.30 per vote cast. There were five elections in 2024, where 343,573 ballots were cast, plus 54 blank ballots.
In comparison, the 2017 MIT report found that government agencies spent around $10 per vote cast in 2000. A more recent calculation using data from 27 states showed that government entities spend around $8.10 per vote.
Calculating the amount per vote in El Paso is as difficult as calculating the amounts across the nation because the data available is incomplete. In El Paso, the costs to run elections are covered by certain taxing entities like the City of El Paso.