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.
4 responses so far ↓
Joseph // June 9, 2009 at 8:12 pm |
My only problem with an all mail election is that how can we be sure that our ballots will not get “accidently” lost in the mail. I don’t have the time or the gas to drop my ballot off at the post office, and I think an all mail election just makes the voting process that much more impersonal.
L // June 17, 2009 at 8:22 am |
You could just as easily fill your vote by mail ballot out at home and bring it into your polling location. It gives you enough time to fill your ballot out correctly and also allows you the social interaction of going to the polls. I’ve been a vote by mail voter for 2 years and not once has it gotten lost in the mail. Almost 50 percent of voters are vote by mail anyways, it seems like a natural progression.
Joseph // June 23, 2009 at 8:50 pm
Right now I am a poll worker and just go to my polling place on my lunch hour to vote which works out fine. However I do not support all-mail elections for the reasons that I really don’t trust the Post office to actually get the mail where it is supposed to go. Two examples.
1. I got a vote by mail ballot a few years ago for an election and sent it through the mail about three weeks before the elction, however it never got to the elections office the post office seemed to have “accidently” lost it.
2. This year after filing my federal tax return I noticed that I made a mistake and filed an amended return however it seems the Post Office “accidently” lost it.
After those two experiences with our post office how am I supposed to actually trust that they will get a very important ballot to the elections office if we had to rely on them.
payday advance loan // June 26, 2009 at 9:07 am |
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