What do "free elections" cost now?

[David Lockmiller]

from my thread titled "RE: It’s a Free Country. For How Much Longer?"

On November 10, 1864, in response to a serenade from his supporters, President Lincoln made in his short speech this observation:

[T]he election was a necessity.

We can not have free government without elections; and if the rebellion could force us to forego, or postpone a national election it might fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us. The strife of the election is but human-nature practically applied to the facts of the case. What has occurred in this case, must ever recur in similar cases. Human-nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak, and as strong; as silly and as wise; as bad and good. Let us, therefore, study the incidents of this, as philosophy to learn wisdom from, and none of them as wrongs to be revenged.

In Lincoln's time, the cost of national elections were minimal. Candidates made speeches (oftentimes, debate speeches) to public audiences. And, then national newspapers and magazines reported those speeches to the American citizens.

Now, one hundred sixty years later: $16 Billion Will Be Spent in the 2024 Election. (November 1, 2024 headline in U. S. News and World Report.)