Political parties want your vote — ASAP
By Karen Branch-Brioso
St Louis Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau
09/26/2004 
WASHINGTON - In Arizona, any voter may cast a presidential ballot starting this Thursday, and election officials in Maricopa County predict that more than half the votes will be cast before Election Day on Nov. 2.

In Charleston, W.Va., the nonprofit Mountaineers Educational Research Fund will put a trolley on the streets on Oct. 13 - the first day of early voting there - to take voters to county courthouses to cast their ballots.

And in battleground states such as these across the country, including Missouri, political parties and other groups are blanketing voters' e-mail accounts and mailboxes with pleas to vote long before polls open on Election Day. The Census Bureau estimated that in 2000, 14 percent of voters nationwide cast their ballot early for the general election. Everyone, from presidential campaigns to election officials, expects that percentage to increase greatly this year.

Chalk it up to a growing number of states that are allowing any voter to cast an absentee ballot or requiring early voting sites that open weeks before the election. Florida, the focus of national scrutiny for Election Day problems, made both changes since the 2000 recount. Even in battleground states such as Missouri, Pennsylvania or Ohio, where absentee voting is more restricted, the push to vote early is still strong. With a tight presidential race, political parties, campaigns and interest groups are devoting significant resources to turning out their voters as early as they can.

"I think in states with more restrictive rules (on absentee voting), it's our job to reach out to make sure people know what's available to them if they meet the requirements of the law," said Terry Nelson, political director of the Bush-Cheney campaign. "Even in Ohio and Pennsylvania, you're still going to have (absentees) in the high single digits to the low double digits. In a race that's close, where every vote matters, it's still very important."

The Republican Party has long snagged a larger share of absentee voters.

"They've invested more in absentee operations, while Democrats had a much better ground operation closer to Election Day. But with the situation with early voting as it is now, it's clear there's another opportunity for us to capitalize on getting votes in," said Tony Welch, press secretary for the Democratic National Committee. "It's state-by-state and it's part of every plan we have. The opportunity, of course, is banking votes that are lodged whether or not it rains on Election Day."

One state where Democrats have had greater success with absentees was Iowa, where Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore had the advantage in 2000. President George W. Bush won the balloting on Election Day, but Gore won the state thanks to his lead among absentee voters, who made up almost 21 percent of the vote.

It is no surprise, then, that both parties are driving harder than ever for the early vote this year in Iowa. On Thursday, Iowa voters began casting early ballots either by mail or in person at election offices.

"One thing people are hearing is that absentee ballots put Al Gore in the winning column in Iowa. That can be a rallying cry for either party, even though it doesn't take into consideration that they may have voted at the polls" had they not voted absentee, said Phyllis Peters, spokeswoman for the Iowa secretary of state. She said many groups began ping off absentee ballot request forms door-to-door as early as August.

Auditor Carole Bayeur-Dawson in Dallas County, a bedroom community outside Des Moines, said, "In 2000, we had about 3,000 absentee ballots. We expect it to be about 8,000 before it's all over this year."

In West Virginia, Randolph County Circuit Clerk Philip Riggleman is predicting that the 600 pre-election day ballots cast in the last presidential election will expand to as many as 1,600 this year. That's because West Virginia, which only had absentee voting as a pre-election option in 2000, is now offering early, in-person voting at county courthouses.

"As far as the folks it appeals to, I pulled (the records) by age, and it seemed to be a cross-section: older, younger, middle-aged didn't stand out," Riggleman said. "The reason why is people are in town, they can do it, they're done and they don't have to worry about Election Day. It is simpler in here than to go into crowded polling places on Election Day."

Betty Hillwig, the director of elections in Lehigh County, Pa., expects absentees to surge to 10,000 this election year from 6,000 in the last presidential election.

In Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Board of Elections Director Michael Vu expects an absentee bonanza. Residents of Cleveland and its suburbs cast almost 71,000 ballots in 2000. But Vu said there had been heavy targeting of absentee voters, most notably by the GOP and America Coming Together - a get-out- the-vote operation opposed to Bush. Both sent out mailers with absentee ballot requests attached.

"We're expecting over 100,000 (absentee) requests," Vu said. "If we have a 70 percent turnout, I would expect a good 15 to 20 percent will vote absentee."

America Coming Together is making similar pushes now in 14 battleground states: Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Wisconsin. The group is seeking voters sympathetic to the group's stated goal of defeating Bush and electing Democrats.

Spokeswoman Sarah Leonard said the absentee push targets an even more specific group of voters: "We focus a good piece seeking out infrequent voters and encouraging them to vote early on absentee, because we know it's not likely they'll turn out on Election Day."

Not-so-like-minded groups have similar goals. The Business Industry Political Action Committee - a pro-business group that generally endorses Republicans - has mounted a $5 million effort to encourage sympathetic voters to cast ballots early. The committee's strongest early-voting push is in 20 states. Fourteen, including Missouri, are battleground states, but Illinois is also included.

"About 20 million people registered to vote who didn't vote last time and the majority of them didn't vote because they didn't have the time," said Greg Casey, president of the group. "These are busy people who are otherwise occupied - a mother who has kids to take to school in the morning and kids to take to soccer in the afternoon. Early voting enfranchises people. And as an employer community, we can help and encourage people to vote over a longer period of time, not just Election Day."

The group established a Web site a few months ago - ezvote.org - to encourage voters to cast ballots early. They are far from alone. The site for TrueMajority.org, a nonprofit grass-roots group formed by Ben and Jerry's co-founder Ben Cohen, also encourages voters to cast ballots early by mail:

"This way," it reads, "you can be sure your vote gets counted, even if Election Day problems arise with your job, school, kids, illness or those computer voting machines that don't have a paper backup."

Early in-person voting has also been expanded in New Mexico. Starting on Oct. 16, voters can cast ballots at 13 early-voting sites in Albuquerque and other cities in Bernalillo County.

Mary Herrera, the county clerk there, suspects many more will vote on paper absentee ballots by mail, in part because of TrueMajority radio ads that raised doubts about the election department's ability to conduct a recount from its electronic voting machines.

"We were seeing a growth in absentee ballots anyhow," she said. "All groups are pushing absentees very heavily, going door-to-door, giving out applications. . . . I'm receiving 1,000 registration forms a day."