North Hampshire will have to hand over hundreds of thousands of pounds to stage the Alternative Vote (AV) referendum.
Newly released Government figures show the cost of the May 5 referendum will cost taxpayers in Basingstoke and Deane and Hart District a combined £316,000.
Both councils are expected to fork up the cash to pay for the referendum before claiming the money back from Government.
A pressure group urging voters against the Alternative Vote has said the money would be better spent elsewhere.
A spokesperson for the NO to AV group said: “The Alternative Vote system is unwanted, unfair and on top of this, expensive.
“The money being wasted on this Lib Dem lifeboat would have been better spent on protecting public services.”
According to the figures, Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council will pay out £217,258 and Hart District Council will spend £98,742.
The bill will cover the cost of training and paying counting staff, printing ballot papers, paying expenses and security measures.
Residents go to the polls today, May 5, to decide whether to keep the current first past the post system (FPTP) or scrap it in favour of AV.
FPTP means that in general elections, the candidate with the most votes wins. Under AV, voters rank candidates in order of preference so if no one gets 50 per cent of the votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and their backers' second choices allocated to the remaining candidates.
This means that the elected official will have achieved at least 50 per cent approval.
Mark Scott, 56, from Sherfield-on-Loddon, is representing the Basingstoke arm of the Yes To Fairer Votes campaign, which supports AV.
Since March the group has staged a number of events in a bid to get people to the polling station. He said: “The politicans took the decision to hold the referendum and are committed to spending the money, the cost is nobodies fault.”
But he said that many people in the borough remain uninterested in the vote.
He said: “A lot of people seem to be quite apathetic about it. There has not been a huge response from both sides on the group. Most people seem uninterested one way or the other. This is something that all voters should take an interest in. We are being given a rare opportunity to send a message to politicians, and to make them work harder for our support.”
