Mail call

Vote dynamics shift as mail-in ballots take hold

The deadline for Whitefish city election mail ballots is Nov. 6, but on any given day until then, the list of who has already voted is available at the courthouse to anyone who asks.

Political advocates historically have used absentee-voter and election-day voter lists to find out who hasn't voted yet and rally those citizens. But the dynamics of a mail election are different.

Mail-election voters have nearly three weeks to return their ballots, and poll watchers, in turn, have that amount of time to strategize and contact voters.

Some Whitefish City Council candidates are using the lists to determine who still needs to be canvassed. It's perfectly legal. Any citizen can get the list. But does the timespan of a mail election make any difference?

The ramifications of mail elections have yet to play out in Montana, said Bowen Greenwood, communications director of the Montana Secretary of State office.

"There are a lot of unanswered questions about how mail elections will work," he said. "We are learning a lot and we'll continue to have an opportunity to learn some things."

Whitefish is among 39 Montana municipalities conducting mail ballots for the Nov. 6 general election.

Intense poll watching is a growing trends in politics, Greenwood observed. "It begins with the absentee ballots."

In recent years, more and more people have been taking advantage of absentee voting. That provides more voter names earlier than waiting until the 2 p.m. deadline on Election Day to request the names of those who have voted.

Getting those Election Day lists "is routine in regular elections," Whitefish City Attorney John Phelps said. "It's been forever accepted. All they're doing is getting more people to vote, so I see it as a positive thing."

Phelps himself has been involved in efforts during past presidential elections to call people who hadn't yet voted.

THE MONTANA Legislature this year passed a House joint resolution calling for a "comprehensive cleanup and clarification" of current election laws, including possible revisions to mail-ballot election laws to require that all elections be conducted by mail. The legislation notes that the state of Oregon conducts all of its elections by mail and it's proven to save money and increase voter participation.

An interim committee set up to draft future legislation for an election overhaul met in late August to begin the task.

The committee agreed it needed more information before it could consider making a recommendation on expanding or requiring the use of mail ballots. According to committee minutes, still needed are:

. Additional information on Oregon voting patterns

. Historical data on Montana absentee voting

. Equal-protection considerations if mail ballots are allowed as a county option or pilot project

. More information on U.S. Postal Services practices and data on mail ballots

. How other states using mail-in ballots handle accessibility issues

. Statistics on school districts using mail-ballot elections

. How Washington state political parties view/respond to the use of concurrent, different voting processes

Other states - including Colorado, Florida, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota and Washington - allow mail-in voting at one level or another. In some places, mail-in voting is used only for ballot issues, not for candidate races.

Locally, Whitefish used a mail election for a recent City Beach bond issue, and various school districts have conducted mail elections.

Some critics argue that paying for a stamp to mail a ballot constitutes a new poll tax, according to an election advisory on the Public Broadcasting System Web site. Oregon has sites around the state where voters may drop off ballots without paying postage. Other locales have opted for postage-paid ballots.

In the Whitefish city election, a drop box is set up at City Hall.

A COLUMBIA Journalism Review article by John Schrag notes that one of the most intriguing issues raised by mail elections has to do with those public lists of voter names.

"In a mail-in election, reporters could compile a list of people who have returned their ballots during the first two weeks of the voting period and conduct a poll," Schrag wrote, citing a TV news director who said that given the technology available, reporters "could figure out which candidate was winning or, in some cases, had already won."

But even though it could be done, it generally isn't done. Schrag said the discomfort with revealing a poll in the middle of a voting period was widely shared by the media in Oregon, the only state with mandated mail elections.

To what degree candidates or other voters could use the voter lists to influence an election remains to be seen with mail-in voting.

Whitefish City Council incumbent John Muhlfeld said the voter list "can work to a candidate's advantage.

"It's a fairly tedious task to cross-reference" lists of voters with those who haven't yet voted, he said. "We haven't done that."

The biggest advantage Muhlfeld sees to mail elections in general is the benefit to senior citizens in assisted-living and other retirement or nursing facilities who physically are unable to get to the polls.

Whitefish council candidate Turner Askew said it makes sense to use the voter list to contact those who haven't voted. He sees problems with other side-effects of mail elections, namely, that not all city residents received mail ballots. The transient nature of a resort town makes it difficult to keep address lists current.

Askew also has talked to recently annexed Whitefish residents who didn't get a ballot.

"It's going to be a learning experience and a real challenge," he said about the mail election at hand.

REP. MIKE Jopek, D-Whitefish, said he sees changes that need to be made with mail elections. The large number of renters in a town such as Whitefish is one challenge.

"I'm not convinced voter lists are updated frequently enough to verify addresses," he said, adding that he believes the state should share some responsibility in helping counties get up-to-date lists.

Another concern is the discrepancy between the 21-day period for mail ballots - Whitefish ballots were mailed Oct. 17 and are due back Nov. 6 - and the deadline for disclosing financial information from candidates and political-action groups, which is 12 days.

"There's information not being disclosed" before some ballots are mailed in, he said.

The rule of thumb, Jopek said, is that about half the voters mail their ballots back within the first week after receiving them.

That percentage isn't playing out in Whitefish, however. As of Thursday, the county had received about 650 - just over 17 percent - of the 3,746 ballots mailed out. The concern about updated mailing list appears valid, since 500 ballots were sent back as undeliverable during recent Whitefish City Beach bond election.

Jopek said he hadn't heard any reports of voter lists being misused, though he acknowledged the potential exists.

"People will get smarter about the mechanics of mail-in elections as more towns go to that," he said.

National political groups use voter lists to build portraits of voters for any number of purposes, using sophisticated software to gather enormous amounts of data, he said. That kind of data gathering hasn't made its way to small-town politics yet, Jopek added.

ON THE surface, mail elections are a good thing, Whitefish council candidate Nick Palmer said.

"It gives the promise of having more people vote," he said.

The drawback to candidates is that mail-in ballots make it more difficult to know when to effectively campaign, Palmer said.

Jopek observed that while Montana has "made a lot of strides in the right direction, Flathead County hasn't done an aggressive job of explaining mail-in ballots."

He believes more public education is needed for citizens to take full advantage of the mail-in process.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com