Absentee Balloting Expected to Reach Record High : Election: Up to one-third of votes cast in primary will be mailed in or dropped off at polls, which could delay official returns.

An expected increase in absentee ballots for the June 2 primary election could delay the final results of particularly close races for two days or longer, county elections officials said Thursday.

Judy Nelson, spokeswoman for the San Diego County Registrar of Voters, said requests for absentee ballots for the primary election are expected to reach a record 300,000 and as many as one-third of the votes cast on Election Day could come from absentee ballots.

Nelson bases the projection on a trend that began in the November, 1988, presidential election, when about 250,000 absentee ballots were requested, although not all the ballots were used.

The last day to register to vote in the primary election is May 4. The registrar’s office will not know the total number of requested absentee ballots until after that date.

Nelson said any delays in tabulating the final vote will probably result from voters turning in absentee ballots at the polls. Absentee ballots can also be mailed in.

“The number of voters who turn in absentee ballots at the polls, rather than mailing them, is also growing,” she said. “We won’t begin to count those ballots until the following day. . . . That means that if a large proportion of ballots are turned in at the polls and processed a couple of days later, they could swing the results from the semi-official count on election night.”

She said elections officials are preparing to update some close races on Thursday, Friday and Monday afternoons following the Tuesday election. By law, the final official results must be tabulated by 28 days after the election, Nelson said.

Ingrid E. Gonzales, assistant registrar of voters, warned Thursday during a planning meeting with city clerks and media representatives that the expected high number of absentee ballots could “radically change the results from election night.”

Authorities say the use of absentee ballots is rising because of increasingly complex ballots and the push by political parties and organizations that generally favor absentee ballots.

“The last two statewide elections used ballots that were so complex and overloaded with propositions that they overwhelmed the voters,” Nelson said.

She added, “Many voters didn’t want to be intimidated at the polls by taking a long time in the voting booth to deal with the ballot. It’s a lot easier to sit at the kitchen table and leisurely read the ballot, then mail it in.”

Fortunately, she said, the June primary ballot in San Diego County “will be short and sweet.” In addition to candidates’ names, local ballots will contain three state propositions and a handful of local measures, Nelson said.

In the past four years, local elections officials have also noticed a growing use of absentee ballots by political campaigns, she added.

“A lot of campaigns have been promoting absentee voting,” Nelson said. “They probably feel that if they can get their known supporters to use absentee ballots, they have those votes.”

However, the local voter turnout for primary elections in presidential election years has decreased dramatically since 1972, Nelson said. In 1972, 73% of the county’s registered voters cast their ballot in the primary election. This figure increased modestly to 74% in 1976 but dropped to 60% in 1980, 45% in 1984 and 44% in 1988.

Nelson declined to predict a turnout for the June primary election, but said the turnout for the June, 1990, primary was only 39.5%. The voter turnout for the general election in November of that year was only 57%, she added.