Absentees as Voters

Voting by mail? A radical idea, some might say. Yet California, in effect, has it. A record 14% of all California voters cast ballots this fall without even going to the polls. They voted by absentee ballot.

The increase in absentee voting has been dramatic over the past decade, according to figures compiled by Secretary of State March Fong Eu and her veteran information assistant, Caren Daniels-Meade. In the 1980 presidential election, 549,077--or 6.2% of all voters--made their choices in advance through absentee ballots. This year the figures reached 1.4 million and slightly more than 14%. Only 9.3% voted as absentees in the previous presidential election in 1984.

Current California law puts no restrictions on absentee voting. That is, the voter does not have to believe that he or she will be traveling on Election Day or will be unable to get to the polls for some other reason. Many campaigns now routinely target and encourage voters to cast absentee ballots. Daniels-Meade says that Eu does not officially encourage or discourage voters from using absentee ballots. She was inclined to encourage the practice this year because of the lengthy ballot, but did not do so publicly because many county officials do not like the extra burden of handling a heavy onslaught of absentee votes.

Another result of the increase in absentee voting is to do away with the old conventional wisdom that absentee ballots mostly were conservative and Republican because affluent people were more likely to be traveling on Election Day and to vote by absentee ballot. In the old days, many close contests slipped from the Democrats’ grasp when the absentee ballots were counted after the regular vote was tabulated. That no longer is necessarily the case. Also, all absentee ballots mailed in before Election Day now are counted as soon as the polls close. Only the absentee ballots delivered to polls on Election Day are tallied later.

Eu’s report of final election totals also shows that 10.2 million Californians voted on Nov. 8, or 72.8% of all registered voters. That was the lowest turnout since the 1920 presidential election. The 10.2-million figure represents 53.5% of the state’s voting-age population.

The obvious message from those figures is that people who are registered are more inclined to vote. The key to improving the voting turnout of the entire population is to get more Californians registered. And those who do not enjoy the traditional trooping to the polls can vote by mail.