Gilroy
– County residents next week will learn the results of the first
large-scale mail-in election in the county’s history. State
officials have begun experimenting with permanent absentee voting
as the sole way to cast a ballot. And legislators on Capitol Hill
are seeking to boost voter turnout by cha
nging the day of election.
Gilroy – County residents next week will learn the results of the first large-scale mail-in election in the county’s history. State officials have begun experimenting with permanent absentee voting as the sole way to cast a ballot. And legislators on Capitol Hill are seeking to boost voter turnout by changing the day of election.
Throughout the nation, regulators and lawmakers are looking for ways to ensure the integrity of the election process and get more Americans to cast ballots.
Congressman Mike Honda (D-San Jose) joined six other Democrats this month in sponsoring the Election Weekend Act, a bill that would switch federal elections from the traditional work-week to the first weekend in November.
“It doesn’t afford a lot of working people a lot of time, especially if they are working two jobs or commuting,” Honda said of the current process. “Historically, the way the day was chosen was based on our agricultural system. November was the end of harvest.”
The likelihood of the bill’s success remains in question, however, since a Republican-controlled Congress is unlikely to support legislation perceived as a boon for the opposing party. Many politicians view a shift to weekend voting as most favorable to low-income people and minorities, who tend to vote Democratic.
“Poor folks are both Republicans and Democrats,” Honda countered. “It’s not a partisan issue. It’s an issue of trying to adjust to a change in our society. To have a 60 percent turnout in our nation begs for reassessment and self-examination. This should spark debate.”
Bruce Altschuler, the chair of political science at the State University of New York in Oswego, said similar bills come up “perennially” in Congress but seldom get far. Church groups, for instance, tend to oppose legislation that would shift voting to a day of worship.
“There’s also a feeling by a lot of Americans that they don’t want to give up their weekends,” Altschuler said. “For some people, watching football is their religion on Sunday.”
He also said politicians of all stripes have a stake in protecting the existing system.
“Weekend voting is unlikely to get anywhere in the U.S. Congress in the near future because the current people who got elected won under the current system,” Altschuler said. “Why would they want to bring in a bunch of voters that might not vote for them? If people who lost the elections were in Congress, then you might get a change in the system.”
Some places, including a handful of California counties and Oregon, have looked to permanent absentee voting as a way to increase turnout and prevent fraud.
Since the 2000 ballot debacle in Florida, Santa Clara County has seen a surge in absentee ballots, according to Jesse Durazo, registrar of voters.
In 2000, only 8,000 people cast absentee ballots in Santa Clara County, which now has about 800,000 registered voters. In 2004, the number of absentee ballots increased to 180,000.
“We believe that by the 2008 election, we can easily have 50 percent of the voters using permanent absentee ballots,” Durazo said. “Permanent absentee is an increasing trend. … People are working full time. The ability to place a vote through the mail is the most convenient, easy, accessible, methodology. It’s a trend throughout America.”
Durazo also praised absentee voting as a “counter-measure” to fears about electronic voting, which many people see as creating new possibilities for error and fraud.
“The real answer’s going to be the absentee ballot,” agreed Alex Kennett, president of South County Democratic Club. “It will increase overall participation. Our country should be ashamed of the percentages (of voter turnout). France and Brazil – if they get under 70 to 80 percent of the vote it’s considered a low turnout. In the U.S., it’s 30 or 40 percent.”
Yet surveys in Oregon, which switched to an absentee-ballot system about six years ago, do not show an increase in voter turnout, according to Altschuler. And while the number of absentee voters has grown in Santa Clara County, overall turnout has not significantly increased.
Absentee voting may not get more Americans to participate in the political process, Altschuler said, but it does change the dynamic of political campaigns.
“It means a lot of people are voting early and (candidates) can’t save up advertising dollars for the last week of the campaign,” he said. “They’ve got to have the last-week advertising blitz over four weeks. It increases the need for money.”
Altschuler said political experts tend to agree that making registration easier is the surest way to increase participation. The nation’s largest turnout rates are in places such as Minnesota, which allows election-day registration at the polling site, and North Dakota, where only personal identification is required to cast a ballot.
Altschuler and other experts do not see any legislative panacea for low voting rates. At best, they predict a legislative solution would boost turnout by 10 to 15 percent.
With less than a week to send in the area’s mail-in library ballot, the county seems headed for a less-than-spectacular response. So far, the registrar of voters has received about a quarter of the 217,000 ballots it sent out at the beginning of April.
“It’s been my experience that those who understand the importance of voting already do so, and the ones who don’t understand, do not,” City Councilman Bob Dillon said. “I don’t think anything’s going to change that.”
Yet voters are not the only ones to blame, according to Altschuler,
“One of the reasons people have suggested that European nations have a bigger turnout is that they have parties aimed specifically at working voters,” he said. “In the U.S, you have two parties aimed at middle-class and upper-class voters. You don’t really see candidates nowadays saying, ‘Gee, poverty is a terrible thing.’ A lot of lower-class voters, a lot of younger voters, don’t see a reason to vote.”
