absentee ballots

Below is a story from today's Huntsville (AL) Times about the GOP's
absentee ballot campaign. If you see similar articles about anyone's
absentee ballot efforts, could you send them to me (off-list is fine).

Ed Still
www.votelaw.com
votelaw.blogspot.com

State GOP makes pitch for absentee

Republican effort aims to bolster its turnout for November election

10/06/02

By JOHN ANDERSON
Times Political Writer anderson@htimes.com

The Alabama Republican Party, anticipating a close governor's election, is taking unprecedented steps to urge targeted voters to cast absentee ballots if they can't go to the polls Election Day.

Marty Connors, chairman of the state Republican Party, estimated Friday afternoon the party is spending $100,000 on the effort. "We've never done this before," Connors said. "It will be interesting to see how it impacts the election."

The state party has mailed a campaign brochure to about 300,000 selected Alabama voters. It includes a plea by U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Tuscaloosa, to vote Republican Nov. 5 and photos of all statewide GOP nominees. It also includes a form the recipien
t can tear out and mail to the local county courthouse to request an absentee ballot.

The state party then follows up the mailing with a recorded phone call from Shelby asking that voters take a look at the flier and help the GOP team by 7 voting in November.

Barbara Lucero, who was the secretary of the local Republican Party for more than 25 years, said Saturday that she got the mailing and the recording and likes both ideas.

"I think it will be effective," said Lucero, who lives in Madison. "If you make it easier to vote absentee, which can kind of be tricky . . . that's wise."

The GOP used two methods to target its mailings. Recipients either live in an area that's voted predominantly Republican in the last few elections, or indicated during a call from GOP phone banks their support for Republican candidates or conservative cau
ses.

Connors said the state party decided to solicit absentee votes after USA Today published a survey indicating that 30 percent of registered voters who didn't go to the polls in a recent election said they didn't do so because they were out of town on Elect
ion Day.

The party figures that at least 1 percent to 2 percent of those voters getting the mailing will vote absentee, but wouldn't have if they hadn't received the brochure, Connors said.

"That's 3,000 to 6,000 additional votes that might be generated," Connors said, in a governor's race that September polls showed as a dead heat between incumbent Democrat Don Siegelman and GOP challenger U.S. Rep. Bob Riley.

Reading Pitt, the chairman of the state Democratic Party, on Saturday called the Republican effort a "clear abuse in spirit of the absentee voting law" because it fails to target its mailed absentee voting request forms to just those residents who likely
can't vote Nov. 5.

Questions of fraud

Generally, state law allows an absentee vote if a resident will be away from the county on Election Day or any day set aside for early on-site voting; is too disabled to go to the polls, or is temporarily living outside the country.

Despite some recent high-profile investigations and indictments of alleged absentee vote abuse in some Alabama counties, Connors said he's not worried that the GOP solicitation will raise concerns of possible voter fraud.

It's the Democratic Party, Conners said, that fosters that fraud by giving operatives "street money" which they use to scoop up a bunch of absentee ballots and peddle them in poor areas or at nursing homes. These operatives "prey on people who may not hav
e been aware of the election or, even worse, older people" who are mentally incapacitated, Connors said."

Redding Pitt, Connors' Democratic counterpart, said Connors' allegation "is more than hypocritical, it's ironic and humorous" in light of the GOP mailings.

The Democratic Party uses its limited resources to "reach people who work 12-hour shifts or who are handicapped" and can't go to the polls, Pitt said Saturday. He said the GOP spends "enormous sums" of "suburban street money" to snare absentee votes from
the state's wealthier residents, regardless of how easy it is for them to vote Election Day.

Connors pointed to several predominantly poor Black Belt counties where he said the percentage of all voters casting absentee ballots in the June primary approached 28 percent. The statewide average was less than 3 percent, he said.

"The Democrats are not able or willing to clean this up," Connors said.

So concerned is the state GOP about absentee voting abuse, it plans to set "a trap" by hiring lawyers to monitor absentee ballot requests in each of Alabama's 67 counties.

"We think somebody's going to jail after this election," he said.

Pitt noted that the most recent state investigation of alleged absentee voter abuse was in GOP-leaning Winston County. Connors said the state GOP helped authorities investigate that case.

A local Democratic leader won't place the blame on either party. Instead he described a system of absentee vote abuse where an individual grabs a bunch of absentee ballots, gets voters to sign on the dotted line, then peddles signed, but still blank, ball
ots to whoever is willing to buy.

"What I've found is that that's sort of a free-lance effort," said Ivan Swift, deputy chairman of communication for the local Democratic Party. Swift, who lives in Toney, said he had no problem with the current GOP effort to encourage absentee voting.

"If it turns out more votes than the other party, then it's a good idea," he said. "As long as a party does what's legitimate, how can you fault them?"

Secretary of State Jim Bennett, a Republican who's advocated various election law reforms, said he sees nothing improper with the GOP flier since it lists the limits state law set for absentee voting.

"It might remind some people that they have that option," Bennett said. "It's probably good strategy."

The GOP mailing "is preferable than shopping absentee ballots," he said, to "uneducated, easily intimidated" voters.

Ed Still