Absentee Ballots Providing the Edge in Close Races : Politics: Candidates are altering their campaigns. At least one in five state voters will mail in votes this fall.

When Dan Lungren went to bed on election night two years ago, he trailed Democrat Arlo Smith by nearly 30,000 votes. But rather than concede defeat or lose sleep, the Republican candidate for state attorney general remained confident that the bitterly fought race would swing in his favor.

One week later, after the tabulation of 1.4 million absentee ballots, Lungren was proved correct. Benefiting from a massive state Republican Party vote-by-mail effort, he picked up almost 60,000 votes in the absentee count, squeaking into office by a margin of 29,000 votes.

“It took a little longer than usual to find out,” said Brian Lungren, the candidate’s brother, who served as his campaign manager. “But even on election night when we were down, we knew we had won.”

In the fast-food, fax-happy culture of California, the absentee ballot has become a key tool for swaying the results of close campaigns.

Traditionally, absentee ballots were cast only by voters who were unable to make it to the polls because of lingering illness or out-of-town travel. But since restrictions were lifted in the late 1970s, Californians have increasingly forsaken the polling place to vote in the comfort of their homes.

Consider: When Ronald Reagan ran for President in 1990, 6.2% of California voters cast absentee ballots. A decade later, the percentage had tripled.

Twice during that period, statewide candidates who came up slightly short at the polls were belatedly declared the victors as a result of their larger absentee ballot margins--Lungren in 1990 and George Deukmejian in his 1982 race for governor against Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley.

This fall, experts say, at least one of every five California voters will cast their ballots by mail.

As a result, savvy candidates are running what amounts to two campaigns--gearing their direct mail, TV advertising and personal appearance efforts to Election Day and to the period a few weeks earlier when people generally begin casting their absentee ballots.

Campaigns are also playing a direct role in encouraging the trend, distributing absentee applications--beginning this week--to likely supporters culled from party registration lists and polling data.

The completed applications, which can be returned to campaign headquarters or to the county election office, will be followed up with phone calls and letters. By carefully selecting their targets, campaign officials can safely estimate the number of votes they have locked up before polling places even open.

“Today, an effective campaign can’t be run without factoring in absentee ballots,” said Herb Wesson Jr., campaign manager for Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors candidate Yvonne Brathwaite Burke. “With races that are very tight, it could be the difference.”

Indeed, the phenomenon has reached the point that businessmen are attempting to cash in. This fall, for the first time, political slate mailers that are targeted at absentee voters will clutter mailboxes around the state two to three weeks before the election.

The “Official Absentee Voter Guide,” hatched by Los Angeles-area political consultants Lynn Wessell and Tom Hall, will urge those who have applied for absentee ballots to cast them for candidates who have paid for the privilege of having their names included on the ballot-like leaflets.

“What I saw was a real opportunity,” Wessell said. “A slate mailer is a very important peg in the psychology of voting.”

The increasing importance of absentee balloting potentially has widespread repercussions.

With the massive number of votes cast well before Nov. 3, experts say, the impact of last-minute smear tactics could be diluted this fall. In addition, last-minute surges are bound to make less of a difference because one of every five votes is in the bank.

For county election clerks, the labor-intensive count is another financial burden. Voting by mail also increases the potential for forgery and other election abuses as well as the possibility of votes going uncounted. In Los Angeles County two years ago, 13,000 ballots--some postmarked six days before polls opened--were ruled invalid because they did not arrive at the county election office until after the 8 p.m. deadline on Election Day.

For campaign tacticians, the increasing popularity of mail voting forces agonizing decisions. Nobody knows how many people who are beseeched to vote by mail would otherwise show up at the polls. So consultants must determine whether the money spent on costly absentee programs should be sunk into TV ads, mailers, phone banks and other traditional campaigning tactics.

“It’s extraordinarily expensive and some wonder whether the money would be better spent in other ways to win the 3% to 4% of the vote you might influence,” said Los Angeles-based Republican campaign consultant Allen Hoffenblum.

“There is no dispute that in a low turnout race, say a special election for state Legislature or Congress where you’re getting a 25% to 35% turnout, that vote by mail can be extraordinarily effective,” Hoffenblum said. “But when you’re dealing with a presidential race with a very large turnout, and with the huge amounts of money that need to be spent, are you really increasing the vote? There’s a dispute on that.”

In 1990, the state Republican Party, in conjunction with Pete Wilson’s gubernatorial campaign, distributed six pieces of mail to each potential Republican absentee voter. In a resourceful effort to increase the party’s voter pool, those targeted most heavily were registered Republicans who rarely cast ballots in non-presidential election years.

This month, California Republicans can expect to receive party-mailed absentee ballot applications.

Lorelei Kinder, state Republican Party executive director, describes the GOP program as “very large (and) coordinated . . . so we aren’t duplicating.”

However, the current effort, Bush-Quayle California campaign manager Marty Wilson said, will not be as extensive as in 1990, when he headed the Republican Victory ’90 effort.

“I don’t think an absentee program in a presidential year has nearly the impact in turnout,” Wilson said. “But we will have an absentee program, and other candidates, if they are smart, will be doing their own program around the state.”

In 1990, the state Democratic Party, then run by Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr., caught flak for being dramatically outspent on its absentee efforts by the Republicans. Some experts have gone so far as labeling it the deciding factor in the defeat of gubernatorial candidate Dianne Feinstein and that of Smith in the attorney general’s race.

California Democratic Party political director Bob Mulholland said the state party will again engage in a limited vote-by-mail campaign this year.

“We’re not spending millions on vote by mail,” he said. “Most of our money is being spent on voter registration and (other) programs.”

Party leaders say that with the healthy leads their candidates enjoy in the presidential and U.S. Senate races, the Democrats’ major absentee efforts can be better geared to focus on about 40 highly competitive state Assembly and congressional races.

“A number of our campaigns are going to attempt to take advantage of the large Clinton, Boxer and Feinstein bump and get people to vote early before the Bush, Herschensohn and Seymour negative (ads) hit,” said Marty Stone, director of the state Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Absentee ballots will also play a major role in highly contested local races such as the nonpartisan battle between Burke and Diane Watson for county supervisor, and in statewide ballot measure campaigns.

With propositions, polling data takes the place of party registration information as the No. 1 targeting tool.

“You see the type of voter who is simpatico with the type of issue (you’re pushing) and you try to deliver that vote,” Republican consultant Richard S. Woodward said.

Letters that accompany absentee ballot applications can also help sway voters in the case of complicated ballot measures.

“Say you’re doing a proposition with an impact on small-business people,” Hoffenblum said. “You acquire a list of small-business people. And what you’re doing is you’re trying to propagandize while motivating them to vote.”

Although proponents of initiatives with heavy financial backing can launch their own vote-by-mail programs, supporters of at least one ballot measure with limited funding have signed on to the fledgling absentee slate mailer.

Bobbie Metzger, campaign manager for Proposition 155, says the move is intended to reach out to a block of voters who might otherwise be inclined to oppose the measure calling for a $900-million bond issue for construction and renovation of public schools.

“Traditionally, Democrats vote in higher numbers for school bonds, but Republicans vote in higher numbers by absentee ballot,” Metzger said. “So we thought that for not a huge sum of money it was worth it to us to reach voters statewide who wouldn’t tend to be with us, but are likely to vote absentee.”