ELECTIONS / COUNTYWIDE : 20% Expected to Cast Their Votes by Mail

A record 35,446 Ventura County voters requested absentee ballots for next Tuesday’s primary election, indicating that one in five voters will cast their ballots by mail rather than go to the polls, a county election official said Tuesday.

Bruce Bradley, the county’s assistant registrar of voters, said absentee voting has become so pervasive that “by 8 p.m. (just after the polls close) when I punch up the absentee vote, that will tell me who won in about every race in this county.”

Bradley predicted a 50% Ventura County voter turnout in Tuesday’s primary. He said that would be significantly higher than the level of participation in many primaries in other parts of the state and the country.

“We traditionally vote higher than the national average,” he said of the county residents who also continually show higher levels of income and education than in many other counties.

Records show that there are 320,665 registered voters in Ventura County--147,849 Republicans, 128,679 Democrats and the balance reflecting minor parties.

Election officials predict that the trend toward absentee voting will account for at least 20% of all votes, exceeding the June, 1990, primary record of 17.9%.

The number of absentee ballots issued for this primary still falls about 10,000 short of the number mailed to voters in the 1990 general election. General elections draw more voters than primaries.

In anticipation of the continuing trend, Bradley has ordered 72,000 absentee ballots to be printed for this fall’s general election, which will include presidential balloting as well as state and local races.

“It’s more convenient to vote absentee,” Bradley said. For example, he said, many voters in the eastern part of the county who commute to work in Los Angeles County “have to leave before the polls open.”

In contrast to the rise in absentee voting, Ventura County records show a steady decline in overall voter turnout in primaries.

The voter turnout in the June, 1978, primary was 70.6%, contrasted with 39.9% in the June, 1990, primary.

The number of absentee ballots mailed to registered voters in the June, 1978, primary was 8,890, contrasted with 26,219 in the June, 1990, primary.

Moreover, the 35,446 absentee ballots mailed to voters last month represent a 35% increase over the number of such ballots issued for the primary in June, 1990. In addition, four times as many absentee ballots were issued this year as in the 1978 June primary.

“I don’t like it,” Richard D. Ferrier, chairman of the Ventura County Republican Central Committee, said of the big increase in the use of absentee ballots.

“I think there’s something kind of affirming and communal about walking to the polling place, a kind of sacrament of democracy,” he said. “Voting by mail is kind of antiseptic.”

Ferrier acknowledged that historically Republicans used to vote by absentee ballot far more than Democrats. But now, he said, he does not believe that a high number of absentee votes automatically is good news for his party.

Many incumbents and candidates, aware of the growing influence of the absentee ballot, time their mass mailings for when the county registrar sends out the ballots, which this year was at the end of April.

“I just got off the phone with a very irate voter whose mailbox was full of mailers,” Bradley said. “Candidates focus on absentee mailers.”

He said candidates can purchase a computer tape from the registrar for about $70 that contains the names and addresses of the 35,446 Ventura County voters who requested absentee ballots.

Bradley, a Ventura County election official for a dozen years, said the elections office has had difficulty finding polling places and individuals to staff them.

He said a major problem was finding schools that could give up space for the day to accommodate some of the 452 polling places scattered countywide for Tuesday’s primary. “The schools are overcrowded and on double sessions,” he said.

Under state law, he said, voting officials can order a school to provide space, but officials prefer not to force the issue.

Polling place workers receive $50 for working from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Four workers are needed at each polling location.

“People no longer look at it as a civic duty,” Bradley said.

Ventura County Voter Turnout

% Voter Total Absentee Primary Election Turnout Votes Cast Ballots Issued June, 1976 74.0% 121,203 n/a* June, 1978 70.6% 141,926 8,890 June, 1980 69.5% 148,301 10,121 June, 1982 52.1% 123,230 11,509 June, 1984 43.9% 109,951 13,913 June, 1986 38.5% 110,972 15,710 June, 1988 44.9% 128,456 20,120 June, 1990 39.9% 119,182 26,219 June, 1992 n/a* n/a* 35,446

* not available

Source: Ventura County registrar of voters