Alternative to e-voting is needed: the mailbox

COUNTIES DESERVE A CHANCE TO TRY IT

Mercury News Editorial    15 May 2005

 

Touch-screen voting machines are fine for counties, like Santa Clara, that want them. But a simple and cheap alternative voting by mail should be available for counties that don't want technology forced on them.

AB 867, which faces a key Assembly committee vote this week, would let San Mateo, Santa Cruz and five other counties switch to all-mail balloting for the next five years as a large-scale pilot program. If voting by mail works as predicted, the Legislature should give every county the choice of adopting it.

Currently, only two rural counties and Monterey County, which got an exemption five years ago, can conduct all-mail elections. They are restricted in other places to off-year elections by school districts and other special districts, like the Santa Clara County Library. Earlier this month, it completed a successful mail election on extending a parcel tax.

For San Mateo County, the all-mail option makes sense. In the latest general election, 42 percent of voters voted by absentee ballot anyway.

It also would solve an immediate problem. The federal government has decertified the optical-scan system that the county uses, as of the primary election in 2006. Without the mail option, Registrar Warren Slocum says the county, together with the state, might have to buy more than $6 million worth of touch-screen machines.

Slocum says the county could save as much as $5 million more over four years by not having to hire and train poll workers. It would still buy some touch-screen machines for regional centers to accommodate disabled and late voters.

Cost savings alone would not justify all-mail balloting. Increased voter turnout does. The experience in Oregon, the only state that votes by mail, is that mail ballots make it easier for younger people and those holding multiple jobs to vote. The League of Women Voters, which backs the bill, cited a 15 percent increase in participation in all-mail voting.

Skeptics raise concern over fraud and coercion, but there have been no significant amounts of it in Oregon. This pilot program would give the state the chance to tweak voting laws if necessary.

Voting on Election Day is an honored tradition. But voter turnout has declined precipitously nationwide. Democracies must adapt to thrive. Mail-in balloting is one way.