KRISTEN TOLLESON – SPECIAL TO THE FREE LANCE
Vote-by-mail has become popular among residents in San Benito County and parts of California – in some cases, it has been almost as frequently used as traditional voting at the polls.
Total number of registered voters for San Benito County is 23,812. About 37 percent of the 11,554 total ballots cast locally on Super Tuesday were vote-by-mail, previously referred to by elections officials as absentee balloting.
“The number of voters-by-mail has grown,” said Lupe Maldonado, with San Benito County’s elections office.
The turnout for vote-by-mail has been even higher in the past. In November 2007, more than 50 percent of voters used mail voting for the ballot on which citizens considered a 1 percent sales tax increase in Hollister.
Maldonado said absentee ballots are good for people who work out of town or know they can’t get off work. A negative outcome is that people who turn in their ballots before Election Day, they might have voted for someone who had dropped out of the race.
“I had this lady come in and ask if Rudy Giuliani was still running, and I didn’t know,” Maldonado said. “The lady turned in her ballot, and three days later Giuliani dropped out. I bet she was (upset).”
The elections office generally receives many mailed ballots the day before and the day of elections. The Hollister post office works well with local elections officials, she said.
According to results from San Benito County’s elections office, residents here favored Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama by almost 30 percent. The Republican side voted for John McCain over Mitt Romney by nearly 20 percent.
Said Maldonado, “I have been doing the absentee voting since I can remember, and it works out good for me.”
Vote-by-mail can be requested by anyone who is a registered voter. It used to be that only certain people could request absentee ballots, she said.
In 2007, an Assembly bill was passed into law to replace the term absentee ballot and absent voter with vote-by-mail ballot and vote-by-mail voter.
California has around 8.9 million registered voters and 5.5 million are registered for vote-by-mail. Steve Weir, President of California Association of Clerks and Election Officers, said he is predicting a 75 percent return rate for the vote-by-mail ballots.
“Some people prefer to work on it at home, but some still like to go to the polls,” he said.
