Western States Hold Lessons as Florida Ponders Mail-In Revote

SAN DIEGO — For an idea of how a Florida revote by mail might work, the Sunshine State is looking West.

Florida Democrats have been consulting with Oregon officials this week on how the vote is conducted there, said Scott Moore, spokesman for the Oregon secretary of state.

So far, statewide mail voting is a Western phenomenon. California is one of four states in the region that let residents register as mail voters. States with similar systems include Colorado and Washington, according to the advocacy group Vote By Mail Project.

But Oregon has the distinction of being the only state to do all its voting by mail, and by all accounts the system is a success.

In 1998, voters there approved doing away with polling places, and in 2000 the state held its first primary and general presidential elections by mail.

The Oregon system has some critics, They include Lynn Snodgrass, a former Oregon state representative who lost a race for secretary of state partly because of her opposition to the mandatory vote-by-mail program.

Snodgrass said people who vote at home are subject to more pressure than they would face in the privacy of a voting booth.

A husband or wife — particularly in an abusive relationship — might be forced to vote a certain way, Snodgrass said. Or, she added, nursing home residents or college students might be pressured by caregivers or classmates to vote for a certain candidate.

"My biggest problem is with the whole lack of privacy," she said.

According to the Oregon secretary of state, only a few instances of voter fraud have been reported since the state adopted voting by mail.

It's clear that most voters like the system.

In the last presidential election, voter turnout in Oregon was about 70 percent of those eligible, according to George Mason University's U.S. Elections Project, and was nearly problem-free. Nationally, turnout was about 60 percent, with scattered problems.

"We were fairly skeptical about vote-by-mail at first ... but the benefits far outweighed our concerns," said Marge Easley, president of the League of Women Voters of Oregon. Like Snodgrass, the league was worried that some voters might be unduly influenced by their spouses or housemates. Today, she said, "we're big proponents."

Along with getting more people to vote, the Oregon system gives voters more time to make thoughtful decisions about whom they're voting for, Easley and other supporters say.

In Oregon, packages containing a ballot, a secrecy envelope and a separate return envelope are mailed to eligible voters 14 to 18 days prior to an election. Voters can return their ballots anytime between then and election day.

To ensure their votes are legitimate, Oregon voters must sign the outside of their return envelopes. The signatures are matched to voter registration records.

Prior to election day, the return envelopes are opened and the secrecy envelopes, which contain no personal identification, are removed and sorted by precinct. A few days before election day, the ballots are removed and inspected for flaws or problems. Valid ballots are counted on election day.

In a 2003 survey by the University of Oregon, about 80 percent of voters said they preferred voting by mail. Almost one-third said they voted more regularly with the vote-by-mail system.

"It's still extremely popular," Priscilla Southwell, the political science professor who conducted the survey, said this week. "It's a lot easier to vote; it's not drawing out lazy, uninformed people, and there's a lot of things that can go wrong on election day" that don't happen with mail-in voting.

It's also cheaper.

Running elections by mail costs one-third to one-half as much as running an election with statewide polling places, according to Oregon officials.

Cost savings is what attracted backers of a vote-by-mail do-over in Florida as a way to make sure Florida's delegates are counted at the Democratic National Convention this fall.

Under current DNC rules, the delegates won't be counted because Florida moved up its primary to Jan. 29 in violation of party rules. Michigan is in a similar situation.

Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, has said a vote-by-mail do-over would be the best — if not the only — way to fix the political dispute and make sure Floridians' votes are counted.

Voting by mail in Florida would cost an estimated $8 million, according to some estimates, substantially less than the cost of revoting with traditional polling places.

Even so, members of Florida's Democratic House delegation, including Reps. Alcee Hastings of Miramar and Robert Wexler of Delray Beach, have said they oppose a re-do of any kind, in part because of the costs involved.

Spokespeople for both Democratic presidential candidates, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, also have said they have reservations about a vote-by-mail re-do in Florida, especially given the time it takes to establish such a system for the first time.

Snodgrass, the former Oregon state representative, also urged Florida to proceed with caution.

"In Florida especially, now is not the time to try something for the first time," she said. "They need to do this right."

Mike Bender of The Palm Beach Post contributed to this article.

HOW OREGON'S MAIL VOTING WORKS

14 TO 18 DAYS BEFORE THE ELECTION

— Voter packets are mailed to all eligible voters. Each packet contains a ballot, a secrecy envelope and a return envelope.

— Packets cannot be forwarded. Undeliverable packets are returned to the county election office. If a qualified voter doesn't receive a ballot, he or she can get one from the county election office.

UNTIL ELECTION DAY

— Voters can fill out their ballot at any time.

— The completed ballot is put into the secrecy envelope, which contains no information about who cast the ballot inside. Both are then put into the return envelope.

— The voter signs the outside of the return envelope, stamps it, and either mails it to the election office or drops it into an official ballot box at the election office, local library or other location.

— Once the election office receives a ballot, the signature on the outside of the envelope is verified by comparing it to computerized signatures on voter registration files.

— The envelopes, still unopened, are sorted by precinct.

FIVE DAYS BEFORE ELECTION DAY

— The outer envelopes are opened and the secrecy envelopes are removed.

— Outer envelopes are retained by precincts and serve as the "poll book."

— The secrecy envelopes are opened. Ballots are removed and pre-inspected for any irregularities.

ON ELECTION DAY

— Computerized counting of ballots takes place. Results are released after the polls close.

On the Web:

For a video on how one Oregon county handles voting by mail, go to www.mcelections.org

Source: Oregon secretary of state