I had a query that to me seems quite important, given the combination of many jurisdictions moving to all-mail elections and tight budgets leading to trying to run our democracy on the cheap.

We recently were tracking city elections that took place this month in Fort Collins, Colorado. Fort Collins is a city with a population close to 150,000. It holds city elections in April of each odd year. Since 1995, it has done all-mail elections. It mails ballots to all city residents who are "active voters," as defined by Larimer County. 

To be an active voter, you need to have voted in the last general elections (in this case, last November), registered between that election and March 7th or responded to a mailing from the county after the last general election.While you can request a ballot in person if you don't get one in the mail, that's rather onerous- - and apparently only 14 people did it this year after ballots were mailed March 18.

What is striking to me is that this has a clear impact on the electorate and was wondering if this raised any alarm bells for those on the listserv. The city clerk was pleased that the list was clean, as only about 3,000 ballots came back as undeliverable,but one can assume that at least some 2008 presidential voters who skipped the midterms (as about one in three do nationally) might have voted if they received a ballot in the mail. This seems to me a dangerous precedent, but perhaps one we'll see more often applied in vote-by-mail elections with costs associated with printing and mailing ballots .

To get a sense of the different universe of voters in different elections, see below.

- Rob Richie, FairVote

FORT COLLINS ELECTIONS

* 2011 elections (after midterm elections):  62,260 voters, 28, 093 ballots cast [open seat for mayor won with 46%]

* 2009 elections (after 2008 prez race): 80,250 active voters, 25,169 ballots cast [incumbent mayor wins with 68%]

* 2007 elections (after lower turnout midterm): 56,898 active voters, 21,164 ballots cast [incumbent mayor wins with 82%]

* 2005 elections (after prez race): 72,477 active voters, 31,498 ballots cast [open seat for mayor won with 47%]

* 2003 elections (after midterms): 50,738 active voters, 26,010 ballots cast [ incumbent mayor wins with 58%]

*

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Respect for Every Vote and Every Voice"

Rob Richie
Executive Director

FairVote  
6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 610
Takoma Park, MD 20912
www.fairvote.org  rr@fairvote.org
(301) 270-4616

Please support FairVote through action and tax-deductible donations -- see http://fairvote.org/donate. For federal employees, please consider  a gift to us through the Combined Federal Campaign (FairVote's  CFC number is 10132.) Thank you!