Across the state, the story of strong mail-election turnout held in other cities, too.
In Whitefish, for example, some 60 percent of voters turned in mail ballots. Next door, Kalispell held an election the old-fashioned way and just 8 percent to 11 percent of the citizenry showed up at the polls.
Political observers also are touting postal balloting for producing great turnout. But they say some problems need fixing, and it isn't yet time to shut down all polling places and stock up on envelopes.
“Maybe in five or six years, we'll say it's time to do everything this way. I think saying that right now is possibly jumping the gun a little bit,” said Matt Singer, chief executive officer of Forward Montana, a progressive political organization devoted to youth and politics.
Singer said smaller elections, such as city and school board votes, benefit from mail ballots. At the polls in Missoula, turnout historically runs anywhere from 8 percent to 15 percent in citywide elections with no mayor on the ballot. So when popped in the mail, this year's low-profile ballot led to at least triple the usual turnout.
State law does not currently permit holding a federal election by mail, but the 2007 Montana Legislature asked for a study to look at expanding the use of mail-ballot elections, and research is under way.
Turnout in federal elections, though, remains relatively strong, Singer said. In 2006, with a hotly contested U.S. Senate race, election participation in Missoula hit 64 percent, and Sanders County recorded 70 percent turnout.
In 2008, voters will choose a president at the polls, and Singer said he expects turnout to easily surpass participation by mail this year.
“There's no doubt in my mind,” he said.
A study in California showed voter participation actually slipped in national elections held with mail ballots, he said. While those campaigns might have been operating as if the election were a traditional one, in big elections, people seem to prefer heading for the polls.
“That's still how we think of voting in America,” Singer said.
Zeier, an advocate for mail elections, said she understands the sentiment, but operating polls is difficult.
“I like poll elections, too, and I totally understand how people like to be able to go to their polls. But today, it's very different running a poll election than it was 10 years ago,” she said.
First of all, election judges are in short supply. And they need to know how to process provisional ballots, handle people who have disabilities, know ID provisions and otherwise not disenfranchise anyone, she said.
“It's a lot,” Zeier said.
The mail election, though, gives administrators complete control of the process, which is how Zeier identified and corrected an error where some Ward 3 residents received Ward 2 ballots. The cost seems to be a wash, too, though bills aren't in yet.
But Zeier said the process isn't perfect yet.
“I think some citizens had some valid concerns about their signatures being on the outside of the envelope,” she said.
In an age of identity theft, she said an envelope with a flap over the signature should be used next time. (Some people mistakenly believed election officials could tell how they voted, but they can't. The process of verifying a signature and opening secrecy envelopes are kept separate.)
Zeier also said she wasn't ready for the onslaught of voting on the last day - with 5,000 ballots delivered to the Missoula County Courthouse last Tuesday - and plans to hire more people to verify signatures next time.
“I truly was unprepared - I'll admit my mistake,” Zeier said.
But Zeier was the one who asked the Missoula City Council to approve a plan to hold this year's elections by mail. She wanted to see turnout increase, and relatively speaking, it skyrocketed.
“For me, this was a pretty good November election,” she said.
In Montana, mail elections have taken place on smaller scales before. Montana Conservation Voters executive director Theresa Keaveny said this year was the first that most major cities in the state held all-mail elections, and she praised turnout. But she wants to know how those elections worked otherwise, and data isn't readily available.
Only after prompting did the secretary of state's office send out a survey to election administrators requesting feedback on things such as signature verification, provisional voting, undeliverable ballots, inactive voters and other matters. The questionnaire went out Nov. 2.
“We thought it was quite late, considering that there was a lot of information to potentially be gathered,” Keaveny said.
Before making a wholesale switch to all-mail elections, she said officials need to identify and eliminate the roadblocks to voting in such an election. Some counties, for instance, did not provide voters good information about late registration and lost ballots. She would like the secretary of state to provide more guidance on the best way to manage things like drop-off sites, inactive voters and informing people of their right to register late.
“If the state were to go to an all-mail ballot system for federal elections, we think there would be a number of items to improve,” Keaveny said.
Secretary of state spokesman Bowen Greenwood said department officials are monitoring mail-in ballots, and they responded quickly to the idea of a survey.
“I'm not afraid to give credit where it's due. It was their idea, and it was a good one,” Greenwood said of the voters' group.
He said election rules are laid out in state law. The office communicates with clerks daily and does send counties general guidelines about deactivating voters. It doesn't have an army of investigators watchdogging elections, though.
“This office actually has relatively little enforcement authority,” Greenwood said.
As for the future, he said Secretary Johnson would like to retain some walk-in polling places and doesn't want to see too many changes at once.
“It's hard work for the county elections administrators when the elections process is radically altered,” Greenwood said.
On the campaign trail in Missoula, candidates for City Council said next time around, they want ballots mailed out closer to Election Day. Ballots were in the mail three weeks ahead of time, but Zeier said council members can move up the mailing date some.
“It actually shortened my campaign by probably a week at least, so that was difficult,” said Lyn Hellegaard, who won in Ward 4.
“I think that the time period was too long,” agreed Ed Childers, who reclaimed his seat in Ward 6.
A legislative working group is studying the wider use of mail-in ballots and presents a report to an interim committee on Nov. 30. Depending on the group's findings, it could put forth a recommendation to the 2009 Montana Legislature.
Reporter Keila Szpaller can be reached at 523-5262 or at Keila.Szpaller@missoulian.com
State may hold all elections by mail
By CHARLES S. JOHNSON of the Missoulian
HELENA - The apparent glowing success of mail-in balloting in some Montana cities last week raises the question of whether it should be used statewide for all elections.
That question could be one of the major issues facing legislators in 2009 or future sessions.
A working group of lawmakers, state and local election administrators, education officials and representatives of advocacy groups is studying the complex issues surrounding mail balloting.
House Joint Resolution 46, by Reps. Diane Sands, D-Missoula, and Pat Ingraham, R-Thompson Falls, called for a comprehensive cleanup of election law. It also authorized a study to examine “possible revisions to mail ballot election laws to require or permit that all elections be conducted by mail ballot.”
The panel studying the issue has reached no conclusions yet.
However, Oregon's election administrator, John Lindback, has urged state and local governments in other states to go slow on mail-only elections, according to a draft briefing paper by Sue O'Connell, a Montana legislative researcher. Oregon phased in its mail balloting system over two decades - beginning with small local elections, then going to statewide ballot issues and, finally, in 1998, all elections.
In 2005, Washington state gave local election officials the authority to decide whether to switch to mail balloting, O'Connell wrote. Most counties, including King County, which includes Seattle, have done so.
In Montana, local election officials were ecstatic last week about mail balloting in municipal races that usually draw pathetic voter turnouts. Billings, Bozeman, Fort Benton, Glasgow, Havre, Helena and Missoula saw significantly higher than normal and speedier vote counts, the Associated Press reported in a recap last week.
“It was so good,” said Paulette DeHart, Lewis and Clark County clerk and recorder.
“Wonderful, wonderful,” Diane Mellem, Hill County clerk and recorder, said.
“The turnout was so gratifying,” said Duane Winslow, Yellowstone County elections administrator, told the Billings Gazette. “That's what made it worth all the extra effort.”
Mail balloting has a lot of advantages. People can vote in the comfort of their homes without pressure. They can take their time to follow media coverage of the races, do their own research and grill the candidates who knock on their doors.
Critics, however, worry that mail balloting may increase the possibility of voter fraud and deprive some people of their right to vote if ballots get lost in the mail.
Last week, 86 mail ballot elections from 80 different municipalities in 39 counties around Montana ended Tuesday, according to Bowen Greenwood, spokesman for Secretary of State Brad Johnson, the state's chief election official.
It was far from perfect, however.
In Billings, Winslow said that 4,000 ballots were undeliverable. In addition, some people failed to sign their ballots, while others complained about having to pay for the postage stamp on the envelope to return their ballots.
In Helena, ballots for the Citizens Council, an advisory group of neighborhood representatives, were voided because of a clerical error. Another election will have to be held in January at a cost of up to $7,000.
So far, Montana's secretary of state has remained neutral on the mail balloting question, Greenwood said.
“Brad always says he suspects mail ballots are in the future, but that he has a number of concerns he wants to make sure are addressed,” Greenwood said. “He wants to make sure we have the appropriate level of ballot security, that we don't rush into too many changes at once and that we have to keep at least some availability of walk-in polling places for people with disabilities and other folks like him that like the old way.”
Advocates of the disabled have expressed concern about mail balloting.
Joe Lamson, a staffer for Superintendent of Public Instruction Linda McCulloch, has questioned whether fewer low-income and American Indian voters take part in elections with mail voting. He examined absentee balloting totals by county in 2006 and found that most of the Indian reservation counties ranked near the bottom in terms of participation.
“Most of the mail balloting is great in terms of overall participation rates, but you get those rates from people that are good voters anyway,” he said.
It may require far greater outreach efforts to spur voting, he said. Lamson also suggested that the ballots ought to be sent pre-stamped so the cost or trouble of getting a postage stamp won't be a deterrent.
Montanans already can vote by mail in federal primary and general elections by signing up to be permanent absentee voters.
Before 2005, only those Montanans who said they would be out of town or physically unable to vote were allowed to cast absentee ballots.
However, a 2005 law gave Montanans the right to sign up to be permanent absentee voters and receive absentee ballots at home in all future state and federal elections.
Thousands of people have done just that. Statistics from the secretary of state's office show that 61,806 Montanans have registered to receive absentee mail ballots for all elections. An additional 2,217 have registered to be on the permanent absentee list just for federal elections.
For that matter, an astonishing 29.5 percent of Montana voters - 121,255 people - voted absentee in the November 2006 election. This total includes those registered as permanent absentee voters, those who completed the paperwork to receive a mail ballot just for that election and those who voted early at the courthouse.
Montana seems to be moving slowly toward mail balloting. As legislators sort out its complexities, the question may be not if, but when, Montana makes the switch.
Johnson is chief of the Lee Newspapers State Bureau in Helena. He can be reached at (800) 525-4920 or (406) 443-4920. His e-mail address is chuck.johnson@lee.net
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