You’ve probably read that one of the Governor’s budget cutting proposals is to cut the funding that the state provides to counties in the form of a reimbursement for mailing out the Vote by Mail ballots to voters.
State officials contend that they can save more than $28 million a year by suspending state absentee ballot requirements.
Chris Carson, the Government director for the League of Women Voters of California, said that, “For a county to stop providing ballots for everyone, it would have to conduct the time-consuming and expensive task of determining which voters would remain entitled to them under federal law because they are in the military, live overseas, or are physically unable get to the polling place.”
Dean Logan, the Los Angeles County registrar/recorder called it “odd” for the governor to suggest suspending a program that was so popular. And his county has the lowest percentage enrollment of Vote by Mail voters in the state. Los Angeles County billed the state $3.2 million for absentee ballots in the last fiscal year.
“It almost feels like it’s cornering local government into picking up the tab for something the state has previously agreed to pay for,” Logan said.
Our own elections official, Warren Slocum, called the proposed vote by mail budget cut, a “policy disaster.” “What we should be doing in California is moving to all mail elections – not debating the wisdom of eliminating state funding for county vote by mail programs,” Slocum said.
We’re looking for relief from election costs in the form of vote my mail initiatives, resizing of precincts to subtract out the vote by mail voters, and consolidation of precincts. The Governor’s remedy exacerbates the problem on a local level without providing any counter balance of local relief.
