Registrar Deborah Hench estimates the cost of the special election to San Joaquin County will be about one million dollars.

A state spokesman says Governor Schwarzenegger intends to reimburse all counties for special election expenses next year either by stand-alone legislation or through the budget.  But Hench, who's still waiting a 750 thousand dollar reimbursement from the gubernatorial recall election two years ago, isn't counting on it.

So to save money, she's consolidating precincts, cutting the number by one hundred to 423.

"We don't have to pay for rent of the polling place. We don't have to pay for the four board members and that cuts our training costs also because we don't have to train those people."

Hench has also recruited some two thousand volunteers to help her staff of fifty.

A spokeswoman in the administrator's office says the county has a reserve fund that could be used to reimburse the Registrar if the state doesn't.

Hench anticipates having the votes counted within seven hours after the polls close.