Today we have a guest editorial by David Elliot from the Wisconsin Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty - Please remember these facts when you go to vote on Nov. 7. - Ed.

Suppose the Wisconsin Legislature approved a government spending program that cost taxpayers millions of dollars, yet failed to provide a single social service or discernible product.

Heads would roll, and angry voters would elect someone - a Democrat, a Republican, an Independent, anyone - to fix the problem and reverse the wasteful spending of precious tax dollars.

Yet Wisconsin voters today are being asked to vote in favor of a nonbinding referendum to reinstate the death penalty - a government program that is immensely costly, makes mistakes, and, in most cases, fails to execute even those who end up on death row.

In the past 15 years four states have reinstated the death penalty: New York (1995), Kansas (1994), New Jersey (1992), and New Hampshire (1991).

These four states have two things in common. First, not one of them has executed a single person, nor are any of them about to. And second, they have spent a combined hundreds of millions of dollars on not executing people. In other words: these states created, in most cases, an expensive government program that has failed to provide a single service or discernible product.

Years ago, when Wisconsin legislators were yet again debating whether to reinstate the death penalty, the fiscal policy arm of state government estimated that reinstatement would require the spending of $285,000 per capital case, plus $1.4 million to build a prison death row and $500,000 a year to staff it. If anything, based on the experiences of other states, that's way to low an estimate.

Where does this money come from?

Well, of course it comes from taxpayers. But taxpayers, through their elected officials make choices about where dollars get spent - which programs are prioritized. So, really, the money to pay for Wisconsin's death penalty would come from our public safety programs. It would come from our schools. It would come from our hospitals. It would come from our programs to protect the environment. It would come straight out of our crime-ridden neighborhoods. It would come from programs aimed at helping crime victims, or cutting down on drug abuse, or addressing gang violence.

It would come from all the things that make us, our families and our communities safe, healthy and whole.

You might be thinking: how in the world is the death penalty more expensive than life in prison without parole? It is more expensive first and foremost because death penalty trials are more expensive. They last longer and require more defense lawyers, more prosecutors and more expert witnesses. The death penalty also is more expensive because of the complex and lengthy appeals process. And the death penalty is more expensive because death rows require more security and higher ratios of prison staff to inmates than other types of incarceration.

Don't believe that? Let's go back and look at the experiences of the states that most recently reinstated the death penalty. New Jersey has 10 people on death row and it has spent $253 million not executing them. That's $253 million over and above the cost of life without parole. New York spent $200 million over a ten-year period not executing its handful of death row inmates.

In Kansas it is estimated that a single death penalty case costs $1.26 million - and by the way, they haven't executed anyone either. And what of New Hampshire, where residents are proud of their state's history of low taxes and culture of fiscal conservatism? Perhaps the Granite State is the smartest: it hasn't sent anyone to death row.

Some might argue, "sure, the death penalty is expensive, but can we really put a price on justice?"

Maybe not. But we can weigh priorities and arrive at conclusions. Jonathan Gradess, an expert on assessing the cost of the death penalty, did that very thing in New Jersey when he was testifying before a state death penalty study commission.

"At the core of this debate is a harsh reality," Gradess testified. "There is not a bottomless pit of funding from which to keep the public safe and serve the needs of victims' families. It is true, there is no price on justice. But you can finance programs with a track record of improving public safety. If you have $250 million to spend on law enforcement over the next 20 years, ask yourself this: is its most expensive symbol (the death penalty) really your best answer?"

Wisconsin's population is roughly two-thirds of New Jersey's. Extrapolating that, and considering New Jersey's history with the death penalty, Wisconsin can expect to spend at least $167 million on the death penalty over the next 15 years if voters and state legislators decide to go down this costly, wasteful and ultimately unsatisfying road. And even at the end of this 15-year period and $167 million expenditure, there is a very real possibility that not a single person will have been executed.

All things considered, it is a road better left untraveled.