Each registered voter costs Oregon $4.51 in paperwork

That's according to a new report from the Pew Center for the States, which treats Oregon as a case study to see how much state governments spend on maintaining their voter rolls. The authors say that the $9.7 million Oregon spent in 2008 could have been reduced by using less paper and more binary code:

Innovative, cost-saving steps toward modernization have already been implemented by some states. For example, Delaware reduced its labor costs by $200,000 annually with its eSignature practice that requires every visitor to the Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to register to vote, update their record or decline to do so and then electronically syncs the data with the state election office. In Phoenix, Arizona, an online registration costs an average of 3 cents to process versus at least 83 cents for a paper registration form.