"Some would like to see California become entirely a vote-by-mail state," said Kim Alexander, president and founder of the California Voter Foundation, a nonpartisan voter-education group. "I would suggest we take a closer look at it."
Some experts said that residents who vote at home may be more susceptible to coercion by spouses, friends or co-workers to vote a certain way. They also worry that those who cast their ballots early could miss important campaign developments that might have changed their vote.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday, October 29, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 59 words Type of Material: Correction
Voting by mail: A chart in Monday's Section A explaining how to ensure that one's mail-in ballot is counted stated that the ballot must be accompanied by the signed secrecy sleeve so the registrar can confirm the signature is valid; it should have said the envelope the ballot is returned in needs to be signed, not the security sleeve.
In the Feb. 5 presidential primary, for instance, some voters mailed their ballots in before John Edwards and other presidential candidates withdrew from the race.
Election watchers fear that ballots could become lost in the mail or arrive too late to be counted. To avoid this scenario, the Santa Barbara County registrar will send workers to pick up ballots at post offices the evening of Nov. 4.
Ballots can be sent by mail or delivered in person to the registrar's office, or can be dropped off at a polling place in the county where the voter lives. In all circumstances, ballots must be received by 8 p.m. on Nov. 4 in order to be counted.
"After every election, in every county office, there are stacks of vote-by-mail ballots that aren't counted because they weren't received by the close of business on election day," Alexander said. "It's heartbreaking, because the voters don't know that their ballots aren't counted."
In California, voting by mail has been on the upswing since 2002, when a state law took effect allowing residents to permanently mark their ballots at home. The trend further escalated this year when many registrars, in an effort to decrease congestion at the polls, launched aggressive publicity campaigns to entice residents to apply for mail-in ballots.
Nearly half of the state's voters are expected to cast their ballots by mail this year. By comparison, 32% of voters used mail-in ballots in the 2004 presidential election and only 24% did so in 2000.
Lawmakers, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein, are pushing to require all states to offer voting by mail without an excuse by the next federal election.
"It's really a very convenient process -- you get to vote in your home, you get to discuss it, you get to mail it in," said Jesse Durazo, registrar of voters in Santa Clara County. "Going to the precinct, you have to leave your job, you have to get a baby-sitter, you have to find parking, you have to vote at night."
