ELECTIONS / ABSENTEE BALLOTS : Number of Votes by Mail Expected to Break Record : The early returns will make it possible to declare winners in most county races as soon as the polls close.

A record 55,200 Ventura County voters have requested absentee ballots for the Nov. 3 election, and nearly one in every five voters is expected to cast a ballot by mail, a county election official said Tuesday.

“Ever since we got in the absentee business in 1976, every election has been a record,” said county elections chief Bruce Bradley.

Bradley said that he expects at least 75% of the county’s 359,236 registered voters to cast ballots this election, and the expected 50,000 absentee votes would make up about 19% of the total vote.

Absentee voting has increased dramatically since 1976, when looser restrictions first allowed voters to vote from home even if going to the polls was not a hardship.

Only about 8,700 absentee ballots were cast in 1976, one-sixth of the total expected in Tuesday’s general election.

Because of the early voting, the outcome of most Ventura County races will be known immediately after the polls close at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Bradley said.

“For all intents and purposes, that will show who’s won in Ventura County,” Bradley said. “It’s a pretty good sample.”

Traditionally, absentee voting has favored Republicans over Democrats, because many who cast ballots by mail were either senior citizens or white-collar commuters from the heavily Republican east county.

Nels Henderson, chairman of county Democratic Central Committee, said that that trend has been reversed.

“It’s been a Republican tool, but this year we’re more organized than I’ve ever seen the Democratic Party in this county, and that’s going to account for a large part of the 20% who are going to vote absentee.”

But Richard Ferrier, chairman of the county’s Republican Central Committee, said he dislikes absentee balloting in general and thinks that it could be harmful to President Bush this year in particular.

“I think it’s a violation of the sacrament of democracy, which is walking or driving to your polling place and seeing the faces of your fellow citizens,” Ferrier said.

Even worse, voters who have already cast their ballots by mail made their choice before Bush got a boost this week by reports of solid growth in the national economy, Ferrier said.

“It tempts people to cast their ballots before all the evidence is in,” he said. “And sure, if any candidate is closing in . . . it hurts that candidate.”

Despite Democratic registration gains this year, potential Republicans voters still outnumber Democrats in the county 157,631, or 43.9%, to 147,680, or 41.1%.

While partisans disagree on the desirability of mail balloting, both parties draw heavily from absentee-voter lists when deciding who to target with campaign mailers weeks before election.

Since absentee voters tend to vote more consistently than others, both parties flood their mailboxes early and often.

Bradley said that about 20 candidates have purchased daily updates of absentee-voter lists since his office began to issue the ballots Oct. 5.

A full set of 17 lists cost $170, he said.

Bradley said he generally favors absentee balloting because it slightly boosts turnouts in presidential elections and--if used exclusively--could increase voting by two or three times in neglected local elections.

Two rural California counties, Placer and Stanislaus, have state permission to run local elections solely by mail, he said.

“I think if most people had their choice they’d vote absentee all the time,” Bradley said.

In addition, election officials are having an increasingly difficult time recruiting workers to oversee polling places from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Election Day, he said.

Ventura County Absentee Voters

Total Absentte General % Voter Votes Ballots Election Turnout Cast Issued Nov., ’76 83.0 159,874 9,640 Nov., ’80 82.3 195,983 17,751 Nov., ’84 77.5 228,631 32,025 Nov., ’88 75.6 248,351 41,310 Nov., ’92 -- -- 55,200*

* Absentee ballots issued by mail. Officials anticipate 1,000 more to be issued in person before the election.

Source: Ventura County Registrar of Voters