Amid all the sound and fury, photocalls and mishaps of the general election campaign, it is easy to forget that administering the vote is a vast logistical exercise.
More than 40,000 polling stations need to be found and set up, staff need to be recruited and paid to work on polling day, ballot papers need to be printed and distributed, electoral registers finalised, and election counts organised.
This all costs the UK government significant sums of public money. And in recent years, the cost of elections has been rising steadily. These sums represent the administrative and logistical cost of the vote, before any campaign spending by political parties is factored in.
