That’s a lot of ink

The saying “never argue with someone who buys his (or her) ink by the barrel” has been attributed to various people, including Mark Twain. However, I would like to comment on “Vote by Numbers” (May 5).

The IEC has purchased “a million tons of ink” for the 22,924 voting stations, plus 200,000 finger-marking pens. The ink can only be for stamping IDs and ballot papers.

At about R600 per litre, a million tons (say 600,000l) would cost R360m. Looking at the million tons of ink another way: say there are 30million voters. The ink “splash” would be 30kg per voter.

Where on earth has all this ink gone at the polling stations?

Alan Campbell, Port Elizabeth