Election Shows Trend Toward Absentee Ballots on the Upswing

Voters in Tuesday’s Los Angeles election cast far more absentee ballots than in previous similar elections, and city officials said this reflects a trend in voter habits and political campaign strategies.

As of Wednesday, 46,523 absentee ballots had been counted by the Los Angeles city clerk, with another 9,000 still to be tabulated.

Tuesday’s absentee vote was about 22% of the total, compared to 17% in the council, school district and college district races in the April, 1987, elections, when 36,988 absentee ballots were cast. In the mayoral primary of 1989, 15% of the votes were cast with absentee ballots.

The number of absentee ballots Tuesday caused delays in ballot counting by the city clerk’s office, which must verify voter signatures by hand before tallying absentee votes.

“It’s very time consuming, and labor intensive,” said Frank Martinez, chief management analyst in the city clerk’s office.

The final tallies will not be known until early next week, he said, after staffers have checked each signature against the signature on the voter’s absentee ballot application.

“That’s why it takes longer to count,” Martinez said. “We have 9,000 to go through, each one individually, and that’s quite a different process from ballots received from the polls,” where machines process “about 1,000 cards per minute,” he added.

Martinez believes the numbers of absentee ballots have been increasing since the late 1970s, after state law changed to allow anyone to cast an absentee ballot.

“It is in fact more convenient for people to vote at home, at their leisure,” Martinez said. “They don’t have to make arrangements to miss work . . . or fight traffic.”

Absentee ballot voting has also become a focal point in campaigns as politicians seek to ensure that supporters actually vote.

“Elections today are really two campaigns in one--a campaign for the absentee voter and the campaign for the those who actually turn out to vote on Election Day,” said consultant Steven Glazer, who worked on Ruth Galanter’s campaign in the 6th District. Galanter received more than half the absentee ballots already counted.

The city clerk’s office does not know how many of the uncounted 9,000 absentee votes are from the 6th District. Glazer said, “It’s possible, but I don’t think probable” that the ballots would allow Galanter to avoid a runoff against Mary Lee Gray, her closest challenger. Unless Galanter receives almost all the remaining votes, he said, she is unlikely to increase her overall percentage to 50%.

Although absentee voters may not have provided Galanter a winning margin, they were considered key factors in Pete Wilson’s 1990 gubernatorial win over Dianne Feinstein, and Gloria Molina’s recent successful bid to become a Los Angeles County supervisor.

“It gives voters greater flexibility in choosing the time they want to vote, and then we’re not subjected to bad weather or ‘my children got sick’ or ‘I got too busy to vote,’ ” Glazer said.

Absentee ballots were raised as an issue in the 9th District council race by one candidate, Barbara Ratliff, who charged that homeless people on Skid Row were lured to cast absentee ballots for Bob Gay in return for free meals. Gay denied the charge.

Between 600 and 800 homeless registered to vote, according to leaders of a registration drive on Skid Row, but the number who actually cast absentee ballots was unknown. The race resulted in a runoff between Gay and Rita Walters. Each received about a fourth of the absentee votes counted.

Absentee ballot campaigns allow candidates to “target” likely supporters, said Richard Lichtenstein, political consultant for Councilman Richard Alatorre in his successful reelection campaign.

As a result of getting absentee voter applications to that voting bloc, he said, “we ran 6% higher in our absentee ballot results than among people voting at the polls.” At the Civic Center on Wednesday, Deputy City Atty. Lawrence Punter said he filled out an absentee ballot application, then voted from his Los Feliz home in council President John Ferraro’s 4th District. “It came in the mail,” he said of the ballot application. “It was convenient. I guess somebody was interested in my voting.”

Sasha McMullen, a theater and film industry costumer who lives in downtown Los Angeles, said she has preferred to vote by absentee ballot, and did so again in Tuesday’s election, because she feels more comfortable at home compared to “a cramped little booth” at a polling place.