California held a statewide election on May 19, for six ballot questions. The Secretary of State has just released the official returns, which show that 62.2% of all the votes cast were cast by mail. That is a record in California. One wonders why legislators and the Secretary of State do not propose converting all future California elections to all-mail balloting, given the cost savings experienced by Oregon, which made a similar move in the 1990’s. Here is a link to the Secretary of State’s data for the May 19, 2009 election. Thanks to Election Updates.
That would be a great victory for the 2 Major parties. Given the high cost of mailing campaign literature in California it is already very diffulcult for any small party candidate to effectively campaign in California. In the closest election for a third party candidate in at least 30 years, the 2005 Special election for the 48th Congressional seat was won on election day by the American Independent Party candidate Jim Gilchrist. It was his bad luck that the Republican Campbell was able to flood the District’s absentee voters with mailings and win 48% of their vote AND the Congressional seat. One reason third party candidates are unsuccessful in the larger states is shortage of funds very early in the campaign. By going to mail only ballots the state would be giving the Major parties an advantage that they really don’t need to maintain their asendency. It might even be un-Constitutional for a state to conduct its elections by mail-in ballot.
The Voting Integrity Project sued many states in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, claiming that “no-excuse” absentee voting (i.e., voting by mail for anyone who wants to vote that way) violates the secret ballot. All those lawsuits lost.
In the special election you talked about, major parties had the money to spread absentee voting applications around, but that would be moot if that was the only way to vote. So I don’t see the problem. Just because people are voting entirely by mail, it doesn’t follow logically that only a candidate with enough money to send postal mail to every voter can win. Anyway, even with voting in precincts, it will still be true that some candidates can afford to send postal mail to every voter, and other candidates can’t afford it.
When it comes to cutting spending I would figure you’d look to the election’s budget last.
Oregon switched to mandatory voting by mail by an initiative referendum. Election officials opposed it.
At least Oregon does NOT have the long lines of voters trying to vote using a limited number of E-voting machines.
See the EVIL stuff in Ohio in 2004 — limited E-voting machines. Many voters went home before voting.