Posted on: Sunday, September 19, 2004

Absentee voting may shift politics

By Jerry Burris
Advertiser Editorial Editor

Today's paper is full of election news, as well it should. Because yesterday was election day in Hawai'i.

Uh, actually, it might be better to say that yesterday was the culmination of the primary voting "season."

Because to a growing extent, Hawai'i's citizens are not waiting until election day to cast their vote.

Under new rules that allow anyone to vote absentee for any reason, the numbers of people who choose to cast their ballot "early" are steadily mounting.

(And we hope that, unlike Chicago of yore, the emphasis is strictly on "early," not "often.")

On O'ahu alone, some 47,000 absentee mail ballots were sent out. That's a significant chunk of the total voting population.

Not every absentee ballot will be returned, of course. But elections officials expected the bulk of the absentee ballots to make it back to be counted. The use of first-class postage is expected to increase both confidence and use of the mail-in ballot.

But there is another kind of absentee that has become more common: The so-called "walk-in" or early voters. On O'ahu alone, as many as 17,000 of these votes were expected to be added to the mix.

There is hope that the ease and growing popularity of absentee voting will help turn around what have been declining percentages of voters who actually cast a ballot.

But the gradual transition from election day to election season poses its own set of challenges and problems for candidates and the political system in general.

Traditionally, for instance, campaigns worked hard to "peak" right at or just before election day. Entire campaign strategies were built around a calendar that ended on that specific day.

Now, it seems that candidates have to get their efforts in full gear somewhat earlier, and then sustain that energy for the final weeks of the campaign.

There are strong advantages for candidates to encourage absentee voting, however. It allows them to lock strong supporters in early, get them counted and "banked" so election-day efforts can be focused on the undecided.

And while ethically and legally candidates cannot sit down with the absentee voter and "help" him decide, every campaign organization knows enough to concentrate on getting absentee ballots into the hands of "friendlies."

The rise in absentee voting also helps in the technical process of collecting and counting ballots. The more that are counted early the less chance there is for confusion or overload on election day.

The next step in all this, once the community becomes comfortable with the idea of people voting when they want and where they want, is to throw open the door for last minute, or election-day, registration.

If a person only wakes up to the fact that there is an important election going on the morning of election day, why not find a way to let him vote?

Jerry Burris is editor of The Advertiser's editorial pages.