Voting by mail becoming popular choice in smaller communities

By Dan Linehan
The Free Press

MANKATO July 16, 2006 01:28 am

— It’s a cheaper and more effective way to run elections, so the only question Blue Earth County Elections Director Patty O’Connor has about mail ballots is why they aren’t being used more often.
The system of mailing ballots to registered voters in lieu of the standard walk-in polling locations got its biggest test yet during Wednesday’s election for the county’s 4th district commissioner. Four of the district’s 18 townships, three of which were new to the process, used mail ballots.
That system produced voter participation of about 53 percent, more than double the rate of walk-in precincts.
“I’ve always been pro mail-balloting,” O’Connor says.
In addition to cost savings, she said it lets voters mull over their choices, especially for lesser-known races where voters’ first encounter with candidates is in the poll box.
Mailed ballots do preclude same-day registration, but O’Connor says the county can send people voter registration cards by mail, too.
Jan Roelofs, clerk and treasurer for Vernon Center Township, agrees. She says paying three election judges hundreds of dollars to help a few dozen people to vote is “just kinda ... dumb.”
A similar amount of money is saved from voting equipment.
Here’s how it works:
Between two weeks and 20 days before an election, the county mails ballots to each registered voter in the precinct.
Each person has to have another registered voter sign their ballots, which are then mailed back to the county.
The completed ballots remain unopened before election day, when they’ll be counted in a central location.
But universal mail balloting isn’t in Minnesota’s future, at least not without a law change. O’Connor says Mankato can only have mail voting if precincts have fewer than 50 registered voters. There are, however, chances for growth in townships and smaller cities, where the maximum threshold rises to 400 registered voters.
She says a couple in one township called in to protest the change, which removed the social aspect of walk-in precincts. O’Connor concedes that some will miss that part of voting, but adds that the good outweighs the bad.
“I was pretty thrilled with the voter participation with mail ballots,” she said. “It just kind of proves itself.”