California: Half of California voters getting mail ballots | The Sacramento Bee

More than one-half of California’s 17.6 million registered voters have requested vote-by-mail ballots for Tuesday’s election. The question now is: Will they use them? Tuesday was the cutoff for voters to apply for a vote-by-mail ballot, barring special circumstances such as members of the military being called to active duty. A tally by the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials pegged the number of vote-by-mail applicants earlier this week at 8.8 million, based on a survey of counties. About five percent of those ballots had been returned to election officials, amid fears that next week’s election could set a record for low turnout. Paul Mitchell of Political Data, Inc., which provides voter-registration data to campaigns, said Wednesday that more than 9 million vote-by-mail ballots have gone out.

Colorado: Campaigns scramble with new Colorado election laws | Associated Press

Democrats and Republicans battling in close contests for the governor’s office and U.S. Senate in Colorado are wading into new territory with the advent of Election-Day voter registration and ballots being mailed to every registered elector. The changes passed by Democrats who control the Colorado Legislature mean campaigns are making their final arguments to voters weeks in advance of Nov. 4, and they’re sprinting to the very end to get every possible voter registered and voting. It has also prompted concerns from Republicans about greater chances for voter fraud — a worry that Democrats don’t share. Already, 518,610 people have voted since ballots were mailed early last week. Last year, in an election with only two statewide ballot measures, there were 1.4 million votes. In the 2012 presidential year, nearly 2.6 million people voted. At the current pace this year, a big portion of the Colorado vote will likely be in before Nov. 4.

Colorado: State readies for inaugural vote-by-mail general election | KRDO

Election Day less than a month away and changes await Colorado voters. This November marks the first time a general election in the Centennial State will be all vote-by-mail. “All I know is I get something in the mail and I fill it out and send back in,” Colorado Springs voter Amanda Martinez said. “This is my first year voting.” “Before you used to have to opt in to get a mail ballot,” Ryan Parsell with the El Paso County Clerk and Recorder’s Office said. “Well, now everybody is opted in. As long as your registration is current, you should get a mail ballot around the middle of October.”

Colorado: With a win on the line in Colorado, Democrats hope to mail it in | The Washington Post

Here in the Senate battleground of Colorado, the latest front in the voting wars is  the mailbox. In other states, that fight has generally centered on laws that opponents say restrict voter access – measures, largely passed by Republican legislatures, that require voter identification or reduce the number of days for early voting. But Colorado is  operating under a new system designed to do the opposite: For the first time this year, every registered voter will get a ballot delivered to them through the mail, weeks before Nov. 4. The 2014 midterm elections are the first statewide contests since the Democratic-controlled Colorado legislature, voted last year to make it easier to cast a ballot. The law allows residents who neglect to register in advance to sign up on Election Day itself. And it instituted all-mail elections, with ballots going out statewide 22 days before Election Day. So Election Day, in essence, has officially become Election Month – a development that has spurred strategists on both sides to craft the biggest midterm turnout operations in state history, a high-stakes race to find and identify every possible voter

California: How to Make Sure Your Vote-by-Mail Ballot is Counted | KQED

Almost 8 million Californians now cast their ballots by mail instead going to the polls. A new study of three California counties found that only 0.8 percent of mailed ballots, about 30,000, are not tallied. That might seem insignificant, unless it’s your ballot. There are three main reasons vote-by-mail ballots go uncounted:

• The ballot was mailed too late. Ballots need to be received by 8 p.m. on Election Day, not postmarked (61 percent of uncounted ballots).
• There was no signature (20 percent).
• The signature provided did not adequately compare with the one on file (18 percent).

The California Voter Foundation studied the vote-by-mail process for one year in Santa Cruz, Sacramento and Orange counties. The foundation estimates that about 66,000 vote-by-mail ballots went uncounted statewide in 2012.

California: Report Finds Vote-by-mail Improvements Needed to Reduce Balloting Errors | Virtual-Strategy

A new report issued today by the California Voter Foundation (CVF) finds that the top three reasons why some ballots go uncounted in three counties studied are that they are received too late, lack the voter’s signature, or the signature on the ballot envelope does not sufficiently compare to the one on file. “Casting a vote-by-mail ballot has become a popular option for California voters,” said Kim Alexander, CVF president and founder and the primary author of the new report, Improving California’s Vote-by-Mail Process: A Three-County Study. “But with its rise in popularity has come an increase in the number of vote-by-mail ballots cast that go uncounted.”  Read the Report

California: Vote-by-mail election trial coming to San Mateo County | The Almanac

Voters in San Mateo County will soon be part of a trial that could help the state decide if it wants to adopt a system of primarily voting by mail, with a greatly reduced number of physical polling places. The trial, authorized by a law signed Aug. 15 by Gov. Jerry Brown, will study how mail-in voting affects election turnout and cost. A similar trial is underway in rural Yolo County. As is done in Colorado, which changed to primarily mail-in voting in 2013, the trial will have at least one polling place open in each city, where voters can drop off a ballot or vote in person.

Hawaii: Storm victims could decide Hawaii senate race | Daily Chronicle

The storm-beaten seaside communities on Hawaii’s Big Island are fighting to restore electricity and running water – and likely deciding who will hold the state’s U.S. Senate seat. Two voting precincts in the region hardest hit by Tropical Storm Iselle were closed during Saturday’s primary, and about 8,000 people were asked to vote by mail for either U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz or U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa in an emotional Democratic race that is still too close to call. A Democrat is expected to end up in the seat either way, so the decision won’t likely change the balance of power in the Senate. But some argue it is giving a small number of voters in a remote part of Hawaii an inordinate amount of power. Meanwhile, voters in Puna, a remote, rural community south of Hilo, said they have other priorities – like figuring out how to bathe.

National: All Mail Elections Quietly Flourish | The Canvass

Rep. Dickey Lee Hullinghorst (D-Colo.) thought an all-mail election sounded like a bad idea when she heard Oregon was mailing out ballots to every voter during the2000 election. “It was a traditional thing for me—I liked to go to my polling place on Election Day,” she said. A little more than a decade later, Hullinghorst was one of four legislators who sponsored HB 1303, a 2013 bill that made Colorado the third state to have all-mail elections or vote-by-mail elections. Hullinghorst, majority leader in the Colorado House, said the success of vote-by-mail elections in Oregon and Washington convinced her that Colorado was ready to make the change in 2013. And it wasn’t much of a leap for a state that previously permitted jurisdictions to hold all-mail elections, excluding general elections. More than 74 percent of voters in Colorado chose to cast a mail ballot in the 2012 general election, according to the Colorado County Clerks Association. While Oregon, Washington and Colorado are the only states that automatically mail to every registered voter a ballot and do not run traditional in-person voting precincts, voters in many other states have experienced some form of a vote-by-mail election.

Florida: Trey Radel passes $1.5 million bill to voters for special election | WFTX

He may no longer be in Congress, but Trey Radel may still pass one more bill for the voters of Southwest Florida. The special election to replace Radel, who resigned for his cocaine scandal, is costing you the taxpayer more than $1.5 (m). Lee County Supervisor of Elections, Sharron Harrington, says she could have saved the taxpayers money if the state legislature would consider some new ideas. Harrington wants to have the option to do “mail only” for special and municipal elections. Trey Radel’s resignation will cost the voters of Southwest Florida one million dollars, according to Harrington. Collier County had to shell out another $500,000 to cover their expenses.

California: Least-populous county takes voting seriously | Los Angeles Times

Tess Castle, drinking a mid-afternoon pint at the Wolf Creek Restaurant & Bar on a recent afternoon, admitted something she had never told anyone before: She doesn’t vote. “Shame on you. I didn’t know that,” said bartender Danea McAvoy, 51, after selling lottery tickets to tourists passing through this bucolic town of 210 residents. “Shame on you.” The reaction may seem sharp, but it’s because Castle, 28, is in a distinct minority in this picturesque county seat of tiny Alpine County. Nearly everyone in this community along the crest of the Sierra Nevada — carved through graceful, tall pine groves and mountain peaks, halfway between Lake Tahoe and Yosemite — makes their mark on election day. On June 3, in one of the least compelling gubernatorial primary elections in memory, nearly 70% of voters cast ballots, the largest turnout per capita in the state. California as a whole is on track to hit a record of a more dubious nature — 18.3% of voters cast ballots through election day on June 3. Absentee and provisional ballots are still being counted, but voting experts expect the state to end up with a turnout of 22% to 23% — far less than any in recent history — when the tally is finalized in early July.

Utah: Mail-in ballots, same-day registration: Many in Utah gain more options in voting methods | Associated Press

Voters in about a dozen Utah counties have more flexibility in this year’s election primaries. In seven of those counties, residents may choose their preferred candidate by mail. Such ballots aren’t exactly new technology, said Brian McKenzie, election manager for Davis County, but officials for the first time are relying on them to collect the bulk of county ballots. After Weber and Duchesne counties logged higher turnout with mail-in ballots during recent elections, “a few more counties said, ‘Let’s give this a try,’ ” Justin Lee, deputy state elections director, told the Salt Lake Tribune (http://bit.ly/UoA6HX.)  Voters wishing to cast votes in person, who have lost their ballots, or who simply want to drop them off may use one of seven centers that will be open on primary day, McKenzie said. The six other counties include Beaver, Duchesne, Garfield, Grand, San Juan and Sevier, Lee said.

Alaska: Voting from home | Peninsula Clarion

This year’s October election could see more Kenai Peninsula Borough residents casting votes from their kitchen tables. An ordinance requiring borough elections be held by mail is up for introduction at Tuesday’s assembly meeting. Assembly member Bill Smith sponsored the ordinance, which proposes that instating vote-by-mail precincts borough-wide would be more efficient, convenient, save money and could increase voter turn out. “We’re hoping that we’ll get some good results if we go to vote by mail and make it easier for people and have better voter turn out,” Smith said.

Utah: Grand and San Juan Counties switch to vote by mail system for all elections | Moab Times-Independent

Local voters who show up at the polls on June 24 will be in for a surprise. Both Grand and San Juan counties are switching to a vote-by-mail process this year, so primary and general election voters will no longer be able to cast their ballots in person. Anyone who is currently registered to vote should keep an eye out for official-looking letters from the counties, since those notifications will include important information about the vote-by-mail process. Grand County will be asking active voters to return signature verification cards. At the same time, it will also be mailing out separate notices to inactive voters who have not participated in the last two elections, according to Grand County Clerk Diana Carroll. Those who have not voted in the past two elections will be required to renew their voter registrations, according to information from the clerk’s office. Local residents can verify their voter information online at www.vote.utah.gov or by calling the Grand County Clerk’s Office.

California: Vote-By-Mail Trend Grows in California, But Fewer Latinos and Youths | KQED

More than half of all California voters who cast a ballot in 2012 did so by mail, not surprising since the state has been trending that way for many years. More interestingly, the California Civic Engagement Project at UC Davistook a closer look at 2012 voter data to try and understand how the vote-by-mail population breaks down along demographic lines. Researchers found that voters over the age of 55 and Asian voters are much more likely to vote by mail than Latino and younger voters. It’s worth noting that researchers used actual voter records for the analysis, data that do not include information about ethnicity. To break out numbers for Asian and Latino voters, researchers used a process called surname matching, in which names are compared against a dictionary provided by the U.S. Census. Lead author Mindy Romero said surname matching is common in political science when working with actual voter records and is considered to be 94-95 percent accurate.

Colorado: El Paso County plan would add polling places within minutes from every resident | The Gazette

By the 2014 primary and general elections, more than 90 percent of El Paso County voters will have polling places and ballot drop-off locations within 10 minutes of their homes. Clerk & Recorder Wayne Williams discussed his office’s 2014 plans with the Board of County Commissioners Thursday. A doubling of polls and drop-off sites will make sure elections in Colorado’s most populous county go off without a hitch and, more importantly, in compliance with a state law passed in May of 2013. Colorado House Bill 13-1303 outlines its polling center and drop-off requirements based on population. According to Williams, the law requires El Paso County to have 23 polls for general elections, four for primaries and 11 24-hour ballot drop-off locations.

California: More than half of California voters vote by mail, not at the polls | UC Davis News

For the first time ever, more than half of all California voters in 2012 voted by mail, and in most regions of the state, more than 60 percent dropped their ballots in the mailbox rather than the polls, according to a new University of California, Davis, policy paper. But not all voters are using mail ballots at the same rates. There are disparities in the rate of vote-by-mail use by age, race, ethnicity and political party in California. “Outreach and services to voters — including election and campaign materials — may need to be retooled to reflect these different use rates to ensure all voters have access to the voting option that is most useful for them, said Mindy S. Romero, author of the paper. Romero is founding director of the UC Davis California Civic Engagement Project, which collects and analyzes statewide data on voters and other civic issues.

Arizona: Brewer signs bill repealing elections overhaul that angered many and led to voter referendum | Associated Press

13 elections overhaul by Republicans that left voter-rights groups incensed and led to a petition drive that put the law on hold and referred it to voters. The bill repealed a sweeping elections overhaul that Republicans passed in the final hours of the 2013 legislative session, angering Democrats, some conservative Republicans and third-party candidates. They came together to collect more than 146,000 signatures to place the law on hold and put it on the November ballot. Repealing the law cancels the voter referendum. Brewer issued no statement regarding her action. Both houses of the legislature approved the bill along party lines earlier this month.

California: San Diego county hopes to lick high elections cost with vote by mail | UTSanDiego

With a deluge of special elections running up big bills, San Diego County is pushing state legislation that would allow local governments to offer only mail-ballot special elections. “It could drastically reduce the cost and also it’s an opportunity to expand turnout because people will look at voting more as a 30-day opportunity than as a one-day opportunity,” said Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, a San Diego Democrat who introduced legislation Wednesday. Under her Assembly Bill 1873, counties, cities and districts holding special elections could choose to send voters ballots that would be returned by mail or dropped off at predetermined stations. In-person voting would still have to be offered during regular elections, such as the upcoming June primary.

El Salvador: Salvadoran Americans vote in national election by mail for first time | KPCC

It took years for El Salvador’s legislative system to give Salvadorans living abroad the right to vote by mail in national elections. The law was passed last year, and on Sunday, Feb. 2, the country’s expats will participate for the first time in a presidential election. But the process hasn’t been going as smoothly as some had hoped, with many frustrated by a process they say was rolled out too late, with poor planning and little time for hopeful voters to follow through. Tito Rivera, a Los Angeles restaurant owner, said he registered to vote in the election months ago. But with the election just days away, he still hadn’t received his voter packet. “Most likely I’m not going to vote,” Rivera said. “That’s what going to happen. Because if I don’t send that in time…it’s not going to count. I’m disappointed, because we’ve been fighting for that a long time.”

Editorials: A vote for more efficient Virginia elections | The News Leader

The State Board of Elections met Monday and some of what its members had to say wasn’t good. Virginia has too many different kinds of voting machines, and too many of those are outdated. This would be disturbing even if the attorney general’s race wasn’t heading to a recount. Worse, in our view, is that the old voting machines are part of the problem: Our entire voting system is due for a retool. We encourage the state board to take the lead in upgrading not only the equipment but the process as a whole. Voting in the 21st century can and should be efficient and produce accurate results that reflect the true will of the majority. Turnout last month was 37 sad percent. Distasteful candidates didn’t help; nor did an antiquated system. And when 63 percent of our citizens do not bother to vote, democracy as a whole suffers.

Colorado: Voter turnout spurred by registration, mail ballots, hot issues | Denver Post

Whether it was local issues like secession from Colorado, or statewide school taxes, pot taxes or a new law that mailed a ballot to every voter, the numbers don’t lie. Turnout on Tuesday was remarkable: 319,225 more ballots cast this year compared to 2011, the last election without a presidential, gubernatorial or congressional race driving the fervor. To put it in perspective, that’s close to the whole population of Aurora joining the electorate this time around — or two Fort Collinses or three Boulders or 30 Lone Trees. You get the idea. (OK, one more 72 Ouray counties.) What drove the increase? A lot of things. Some of it could be attributed to almost 212,000 more registered voters since 2011 — from 3,350,219 two years ago to 3,562,184 on Tuesday. Colorado legislators this year also made mail-balloting the law, rather than just an option. The state has allowed voters to chose to get a ballot mailed to them for quite awhile, and in the general election last year 74 percent chose to do so. This year, that number grew to 100 percent of those, plus many more who had been deemed “inactive” for not voting in recent elections. Getting a ballot without leaving home likely pulled many of them still living in the state back into the fold.

Montana: Missoula’s all-mail elections raise turnout, create confusion | The Missoulian

Sean McQuillan doesn’t send letters by mail, and he definitely doesn’t carry around postage stamps. So to vote in last week’s all-mail election, McQuillan, 21, dropped off his ballot at one of the election drop sites in Missoula. This year was the fourth time the city of Missoula held a mail-only election, and turnout hit 43 percent with the mayor’s race on the ballot. “It really does help drive up participation in elections,” said McQuillan, chairman of the Montana Public Interest Research Group. It does by large numbers, too, according to the Missoula County Elections Office. At the same time, though, casting a ballot in Missoula can be complicated, and the process can leave voters muddled.

Utah: Voter Turnout Higher in Vote-By-Mail Test Cities | KUTV.com

Two cities in Salt Lake County that agreed to be test cases for voting by mail recorded higher turnout in their municipal elections than most other cities across the state. “I’d like to think that we had great voter turnout because we had great candidates and they wanted to vote for the mayor. I would like to think that, but I know better,” said reelected Cottonwood Heights Mayor Kelvyn Cullimore, Jr. “We had the opportunity to be one of the test cases for voting by mail, and we thought that was a great opportunity to engage our citizens more than is typical in a municipal election.” Cullimore and city council members approved the vote-by-mail election this year, after the county asked them if they were interested. The turnout in Cottonwood Heights was about double what previous municipal election in the city have yielded, according to Cullimore. “We had 40 percent voter turnout, and that was incredible for a municipal election,” Cullimore said. The other test case in Salt Lake County, West Jordan, saw 30 percent turnout, as voters weighed in on a nearly $500 million Jordan School District Bond.

Maryland: Absentee ballots downloaded online raise security issues, as does Election Day voter registration | MarylandReporter.com

A new Maryland law allowing voting by mail with a ballot downloaded online has some voter advocacy groups alarmed that adequate security measures will not be in place for the 2014 elections. Election Day voter registration and the future of online voting were also among the hot button issues debated at a forum this week, hosted by the Maryland League of Women Voters in Annapolis. The bill, Election Law – Improving Access to Voting, extends the right to all Maryland absentee voters to download and mark their ballots online. Ballots would then be mailed in to local election boards rather than tallied online. Previously only overseas voters and military personnel were allowed by law to obtain and mark ballots on the Internet. Under Maryland’s no-excuse absentee voting law, any Maryland voter is allowed to receive an absentee ballot without having to provide a reason for being absent on Election Day. Cyber-security hawks like Rebecca Wilson of SAVE our Votes said Maryland has no process for examining voter’s handwritten signatures that are required for all the new potential mailed in absentee ballots. “Maryland is moving increasingly to vote by mail,” Wilson said. “How does the [election official] know the person on the computer is the real voter?” Wilson cited four western states that either vote entirely by mail — Washington and Oregon – or by a large percentage – California and Colorado.

Texas: The True Cost of Free Voter I.D. in Texas | Texas Election Law Blog

Per Section 521A.001 of the Texas Transportation Code, the Department of Public Safety will provide voter I.D. cards without charge upon application. However, these voter I.D. cards (which cannot be used to satisfy other statutory demands for identification) may only be issued at select DPS offices, and only to individuals who present sufficient legal documentation of their citizenship and identity. Herein lies the rub. As “free” I.D. is presumably intended to accommodate the indigent, we may assume that the greater demand for these I.D. cards would be from those potential voters who don’t have much in the way of resources. So how much would it cost to get a free Texas voter I.D.? For the sake of argument, assume that the potential voter is an indigent patient of the Rusk State Hospital in Rusk, Texas. Such a voter is not representative of the Texas population, but shares some qualities with a group of Texas citizens who are particularly unlikely to participate in elections (namely, the institutionalized, the disabled, the indigent, and the elderly).

California: Lawmakers stick locals with costs of voting | Kim Alexander/The Sacramento Bee

The new state budget is here, and once again it leaves the state’s election system holding an increasingly empty bag. For years counties have relied on the state to help fund state laws that change the voting process and in turn, make extra work and cost extra money for counties. The last time election mandates were funded was 2009, when they accounted for about $30 million paid to all 58 counties. The largest in terms of dollars and impact is the permanent absentee voter program, which allows Californians to sign up to vote by mail in every election rather than reapplying each time. Since then, the money has been withheld by the state and counties have had to make do with less. At the same time, counties no longer get reimbursed for the cost of special legislative elections, despite their growing frequency. In Sacramento County, the amount of election funding withheld by the state amounts to approximately $1 million annually. The last time it was paid, in 2008-09, it amounted to 9 percent of the county’s total elections budget.

Arizona: Senate passes election overhaul bill | Arizona Daily Star

The Arizona Senate revived an election omnibus bill Thursday that could limit early voting participation after Republican leaders pressured their caucus to pass the measure in the final hours of the 2013 legislative session. The legislation backed by state and local election officials seeks to trim the state’s permanent early voting list and limit who may return mail ballots for voters. Opponents portrayed the bill as a thinly-veiled effort to curb Democratic and Hispanic voter turnout. The 16-13 vote came after the Senate initially voted against the bill late Thursday. Republican Sen. Steve Pierce changed his vote and helped the measure pass when it was brought back for reconsideration. The House voted 33-26 earlier on Thursday to advance House Bill 2305. Republican Gov. Jan Brewer would not say on Thursday whether she would sign the measure into law.

Voting Blogs: Utah counties and towns considering vote-by-mail | electionlineWeekly

Although we are a nation built on westward expansion, when it comes to vote-by-mail it’s a movement built more on eastern expansion. Washington and Oregon are completely vote-by-mail, in the most recent presidential election more people voted by mail in California than cast ballots at the polls and the Colorado legislature recently approved a bill that will send a ballot to every registered voter. Recently, several towns and counties throughout Utah have been considering making the switch from polling-place based elections to vote-by-mail elections. “Over the past few years several state legislators have been excited by the idea of vote-by-mail,” said Mark Thomas chief deputy/director of elections Lieutenant Governor’s office. “They have passed several laws to make it easier to conduct election by-mail.”

Arizona: Senate leaders move to revive election bills | San Francisco Chronicle

Arizona Senate leaders resurrected a handful of election bills Tuesday that had been stalled amid opposition from Democratic lawmakers and civil rights groups worried about voter disenfranchisement. Senate President Andy Biggs unveiled the election omnibus bill that mirrors a handful of election bills proposed earlier in the legislative session. The bills had previously failed to gain traction in the GOP-led Legislature. The omnibus bill would allow county election officials to remove voters from the permanent early voting list if they didn’t vote by mail in the two most recent general elections. Voters could stay on the list if they returned a completed notice within 30 days confirming their intent to vote by mail in the future. Local elected officials proposed the change because too many voters were showing up at local precinct places to vote after receiving mail ballots, creating concerns about voter fraud.