American All-Mail Balloting: A Decade's Experience

Abstract

Many roots of American public administration are found in political and electoral reform. Its early developments were not based on theory but had their genesis in issue-by-issue situations. Electoral processes were and continue to be legitimate objects of public administration concern, the more especially so because elections and the way they are administered are a base on which representative democracy stands. The recent emphasis on civism in public administration offers an opportunity to reemphasize electoral processes which have integral importance to the political system. With declining percentages of eligible voters casting ballots in American elections it may soon be the case where we give an election and hardly anybody comes. All-mail or optional mail balloting elections offer an opportunity to reverse this deplorable decline. Uniquely among the nations of the world, local governments in the United States have conducted approximately 1,000 all-mail ballot elections in eight states in the past decade.I All-mail ballot elections are becoming routine in seven of the eight, New York being the exception where only one experimental election was held in Rochester. At least one contested election for city council seats has been held, in Gresham, Oregon.2 In round numbers, approximately 80 elections by all-mail balloting have been held in Kansas, 400 in Oregon, 350 in California, 40 in Montana, 12 in Washington, 15 in Missouri, and 6 in Nebraska, the most recent state to adopt enabling legislation. This article does not deal with the technical processes of holding mail-ballot elections. Each state's procedures vary somewhat from the others governing such matters as the number of days prior to the election by which ballots must be delivered, the time during which ballots are returnable, processes for counting the ballots, necessity for local ordinances to supplement state authorization, training for conducting elections including signature verification, ballot receptions, procedures for recounts, batching and data entry, and similar activities involved in election administration. This article concentrates on the three most important benefits from an array of advantages. These include (1) a decrease in overall costs of holding elections; (2) increased voter participation/convenience; and (3) an increase in the integrity of elections as a result of more time for voters to consider issues before casting their ballots. It also facilitates the ability of the elderly, infirm, handicapped, and those temporarily unable to participate on a specific time and date to vote. All-mail balloting is, however, a barrier to voting by those with no fixed address, but in-person voting at polling places rarely deals with that issue either. * This article summarizes the results of nearly 1,000 elections conducted entirely by mail in the United States in the past decade. It focuses on three of the main advantages of this uniquely American method of election administration: (1) markedly improved participation rates and increased convenience for the handicapped and others unable to get to the polls for in-person elections, (2) lower election administration costs per eligible voter or eligible voter voting, (3) increased integrity of the electoral processes. Presently operable in seven states, all-mail balloting has great promise for more truly determining the will of the majority through greater participation in free and fair elections-the bedrock of democracy. As election administrators and legislators become more familiar with the experience, it is reasonable to anticipate greater use of all mail balloting, particularly at the local level. This new way of doing one piece of the public's business is squarely in the tradition of American public administration reforms.