Officials Warn of Absentee Vote Factor in Recall Election
By SARAH KERSHAW
Published: October 7, 2003
OS ANGELES, Oct. 6 — About 3.2 million Californians registered for Tuesday's recall election are voting by absentee ballot, and election officials are growing worried that counting that number of absentee votes could drag out the results of an already unwieldy election.
About 1.2 million absentee and other ballots will not be counted until well after the election, and officials said on Monday that those votes could decide a potentially close race, raising the specter of an election with no clear winner for weeks.
More than two million absentee ballots had been returned to election officials by Monday, state officials said. But 800,000 additional absentee ballots and an expected 400,000 ballots that will not be counted until after election night because of anticipated snags will not be included in preliminary results from the counties, said Stephen Weir, the clerk-recorder of Contra Costa County in Northern California and the treasurer of a statewide association of county clerks and registrars.
"If it's close, it's bloody," said Mr. Weir, who estimated that 10 percent to 12 percent of the votes statewide would be counted after election night. "The next day we're dead, and people want to know what's left to be counted, and the bottom line is we're talking about 1.2 million votes that are not counted election night."
There are too many unknowns, including how many of the 15.4 million registered voters will turn out to vote and how the votes will shake out, to predict how influential the absentee ballots will be. But county election officials, who said absentee ballots had decided other local elections in recent years, said on Monday that if the race was close enough, it could take the counties, who have up to 28 days after the election to count the absentee ballots and certify the election results, several weeks to come up with a final tally.
"I think that if the recall question is close, the whole thing could be up in the air," said Janice Atkinson, the assistant registrar of voters in Sonoma County, also in Northern California. Her county has 230,000 registered voters; 94,000 absentee ballots were sent out, with 64,000 returned so far.
Ms. Atkinson added: "We're not enough to throw off the statewide average, but anytime there is a close contest, you can't predict the results until all the ballots are counted and that's not until 28 days after the election in some cases. I think this may be one of those cases."
Over the past few years, a growing percentage of California voters has opted to vote absentee, either through the mail before the election, or by turning in completed ballots on Election Day, according to information from the California Secretary of State. In 2000, of the 11.1 million voters, 24.5 percent cast absentee ballots; in 2002, of the 7.7 million voters, 27 percent did so. Election officials said they expected that percentage to rise with this election. Absentee ballots take longer to count than ballots cast at the polls because signatures must be verified to ensure that the voter has not already voted and is registered, officials said.
A majority of the absentee ballots, almost two million, had been mailed in as of last week, before news reports about the candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger's past behavior toward women and comments he once made about Hitler. In California, voters can cast their ballots as early as 29 days before the election, and some voted swiftly for candidates who have since dropped out of the race. Some voters who did so then tried unsuccessfully to take their ballots back, several county election officials said.
Several county election officials, including those in Los Angeles, the state's most populous county, with four million registered voters, said it was too soon to tell how the absentee ballot factor would affect the outcome of the election. Los Angeles County sent out about 560,000 absentee ballots and may face counting 100,000 to 200,000 in the days, or weeks, after the election.
San Diego County, which has 1.3 million registered voters, sent out 284,000 absentee ballots and has received 197,000 so far. Officials there predicted that they would have to count up to 100,000 ballots after the election and that the count would begin on Thursday.
"That means that if it's close," said Sally McPherson, the registrar of voters, "there could be up to 100,000 ballots in San Diego that won't even be counted for the first time until two days after the election."