Ohio Senate debates bill for all-mail voting

Critics of the bill say voter turnout would increase, but only with older, white voters.

COLUMBUS (AP) — Voting by mail is easy, increases turnout and removes the drudgery of waiting in long lines at polling places, backers say.

However, it also invites increased voter error, fraud and it works against groups such as frequent movers and the homeless, critics fire back.

The Senate is debating a bill that would authorize mail-only voting in elections that have ballot issues but no candidates for office.

The last such statewide election was in 2005, when there were five issues on the ballot.

Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, Ohio’s chief elections officer, sought the mail-only elections shortly after taking office in 2007. She says she wanted to use it as an experiment that could possibly be expanded to include candidates if it was successful.

She had the backing of the state’s boards of elections, which see the move as a way to save money. Sen. Gary Cates, a West Chester Republican, introduced a bill last year and it is currently undergoing hearings.

In Oregon, which has had mail-only balloting in all elections since 1998, results have been mixed, according to a 2005 report prepared for the Commission on Federal Election Reform.

Turnout has increased by about 10 percent, but the increase is due to keeping voters on the rolls and not from attracting new voters into the system, the report by political science Professor Paul Gronke of Reed College said.

Dan Tokaji, a law professor at The Ohio State University who specializes in elections, concurs.

“It’s likely to skew the electorate. There’s some evidence that it results in a small increase in turnout. That’s the upside. The downside is the increase occurs with groups that are older, richer, whiter,” Tokaji said. “Closing down polling places is not the way to broaden the electorate.”

People who move frequently and the homeless will be hard to find for voting officials to give them mail-in ballots, he said.

In-person voting allows them to contact elections boards and simply go to the correct polling place, he said.

The mail-only system will lead to multiple voter errors, such as ballots mailed without postage, voters signing the wrong line or marking both choices for the same issue and other problems, Tokaji said. Overvotes usually are discarded and not counted.

Under Cates’ bill, each county holding a mail-only election would have to open its board of elections for in-person voting, but polling places would remain closed.

Brunner suggests placing drop-off boxes at various locations for voters concerned about mailing their ballots.

Fraud will pose a lesser problem, Tokaji said. Mail-in ballots must pass through many hands, such as postal and election workers, before they are counted.

“To the extent there is voter fraud, it’s very rare. But it’s mostly with mail voting. With in-person voting it’s almost nonexistent,” Tokaji said.

The Oregon study found that in 2002, a person claimed to have the names of six people who each voted twice. However, five of the people voted only once and the sixth was under investigation, the study said.

Tokaji said if Cates’ bill becomes law, he’s going to watch those elections closely.

“I don’t say we should never. We should be very worried about it going in.”