Redwood City, CA - Now that the ballots have been counted for the all-mail election in the Redwood City School District, Warren Slocum wants the entire county to vote by mail.

Under the provisions of a bill being considered in Sacramento, San Mateo County and six other counties could be conducting all-mail elections come 2006.

AB 867, authored by Assemblywoman Liu (D- Pasadena), has successfully completed its first hurdle – it was voted out of the Assembly Elections and Reapportionment Committee.

The bill allows seven counties to conduct all mail elections through 2011 as a demonstration project. The counties are: Calaveras, Mendocino, San Benito, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Sierra and Ventura.

Warren Slocum, San Mateo County’s Chief Elections Officer is spearheading the effort to get the bill passed and signed into law. “Convenience is a big deal with voters,” he said. In the 2004 Presidential Election, 42 percent of the voters in San Mateo County voted by mail. Further evidence of how it might affect turnout comes from a recently released survey by the California Voter Foundation. That analysis said that among infrequent voters the most important reason for not voting was, “I’m too busy to vote (28%).”

Slocum is no stranger to the idea of voting by mail. In 1992 he tried to get an all-mail election legislation passed. That bill, authored by Senator Quentin Kopp, made it through both the Assembly and the Senate but was eventually vetoed by the Governor.

AB 867, however, “has a strong chance of passing,” Slocum said. It has growing support from the California League of Women Voters, the California Association of Election Officials and Clerks, Common Cause, the Boards of Supervisors in the seven counties and a growing number of California cities.

In its support letter the California League of Women Voters said, “All-mail voting is working well where it is being used…Experience with all-mail voting shows that it can increase turnout as much as 15 percent because it removes barriers that keep voters from getting to a polling place on Election Day. It saves money and makes it easier for elections officials to achieve better accuracy in counts.”

On May 3, the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to support the bill.

The President of the Board of Supervisors and a member of the Board’s Legislative Committee, Rich Gordon, said “Voting by mail is a paradigm that we should try – and that is what AB 867 does. People are busy. If this initiative causes more people to practice Democracy – then I am for it.”

And Supervisor Mark Church, the other member of the Legislative Committee said, “Voting by mail is safe and is a logical extension of the growth of absentee voting. It allows people to vote at home any time during the 29 days preceding an election when they’re ready and it’s convenient for them. Election Day limits people to a Tuesday (typically a workday for most people) between the hours of 7 a.m. and 8 p.m.”

The State of Oregon, by an initiative of the people, converted to all mail elections in November of 1998. It had been used frequently in local elections throughout the state prior to 1998. It is wildly popular among the voters as well as election officials. “We love it,” said Anne Martens, spokeswoman for Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury. “People tell us they really like the convenience.”

Recently the San Jose Mercury News ran an opinion piece that said in part, “More elections should be held by mail. The experiences of Oregon…and Monterey County (they began voting in 2002) have shown that voting by mail sharply increases voter participation…and removes barriers keeping voters from the polls. It also is less expensive…”

Slocum said the cost savings in the seven pilot counties could be as high as $10-13 million. After polling each of the election officials there was a consensus, there are no implementation costs.

Slocum supports the bill for three reasons. First, he estimates that it will save the taxpayers of San Mateo County $5 million over a four year election cycle. Second he knows it will greatly simplify the election process as there are no polling places to locate, rent, make accessible, supply and staff on Election Day.

Lastly, the County would not have to spend approximately $7 million on voting technology that is still in its infancy and has experienced varying degrees of problems in many jurisdictions throughout the country he explained.

“While we should be cautious about changing our elections process, it’s an idea whose time has come. Voting by mail has been proven to work exceptionally well in many local jurisdictions in California as well as the state of Oregon. It has increased turnout and with the proper controls in place, it is more secure than a polling place and helps to ensure against voter fraud.”

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