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Many seek to vote before Election Day
BY MECHELE COOPER
Staff Writer Kennebec Journal & Morning Sentinel 10/08/2008

BY MECHELE COOPER

Staff Writer

Municipal clerks in Maine are swamped with applications for absentee ballots from voters who want to make sure their voice is heard on Nov. 4.

Many clerks say the demand indicates intense voter interest in the presidential election.

Plus it's convenient.

China Town Clerk Rebecca Hapgood said she had 134 requests as of Monday for absentee applications.

"It's overwhelming," Hapgood said Monday. "Before we even got the ballots, we were up to 90 application requests, and we just got them in last Tuesday. We had all kinds of applications before we were ready to mail them."

She said 20 towns, including China, are participating in an online service that supplies absentee ballots to voters in 20 participating municipalities. That service has played a part in the high volume of requests she's received, Hapgood said.

"People can go online and make a request and then we'll mail it to them," she said. "They don't even have to call us or anything. They just hop on the Internet and we'll have it in the mail the next day."

Winthrop Town Clerk Lisa Gilliam said she expects up to 40 percent of the voters in her town will take advantage of absentee ballots.

"We're seeing a lot of young college students requesting absentees," Gilliam said. "Last (presidential election) we had more than normal, but this time it's more than that. We have a lot of students in this country and overseas that we're hearing from.

"It's nice to see young kids wanting to vote."

In the last presidential election, Gilliam said, 966 residents voted by absentee ballot. This time around, she said, she expects it to be about 1,400.

"It might exceed that," she said. "It wouldn't surprise me if it did. The parties are automatically sending out absentee request forms in the mail, so on a daily bases we're getting envelopes from either party with stacks of absentee ballots. It's all we're dealing with today. And there's always somebody in line for an absentee."

Rebecca Pollard of the Maine Democratic Party said her party sends out absentee ballot request forms every presidential election.

"It's a much more aggressive program in terms of what we've done in the past years," Pollard said. "We're sending out cards and following up to get people to vote early. You never know what can happen on Election Day, whether it's work or the weather or child- care issues."

Mark Ellis of the Maine Republican Party said his party has focused on the absentee balloting for the traditional purpose of making sure that those who cannot vote in person on Election Day still vote.

State statute has expanded the use of absentee balloting as a more convenient way of voting, he said.

"The presidential race has become very competitive in Maine and Sen. (John) McCain has responded with increased resources here," Ellis said. "Even before this increase in resources, the Maine Republican Party has been pursuing absentee voters through mailers with (absentee) request applications and aggressively following up with absentee voters."

Clerks said a state law has made absentee voting less restrictive: People do not have to have a specific reason to request an absentee ballot.

Richmond Town Clerk Judy Savage spent a whole day last week processing absentee ballots just to get caught up. The town received 80 requests so far. She expects to receive at least 200 by Nov. 4.

"That's not a lot for a town," Savage said. "Some of these towns have more absentee ballots than I have voters. I would hate to be Portland or one of those other big places. That would be horrific."

More than 35 percent of Augusta voters who participated in the last election did so by absentee ballot, City Clerk Barbara Wardwell said.

Wardwell expects absentee requests for this election to jump from 2,750 to 4,500.

"It's because it's easier for people to vote. They have from the end of September to Nov. 4 to do it," Wardwell said.

Julie Flynn, deputy secretary of state, said 40 percent of the ballots printed for each town were packaged as absentee ballots.

When the state went to "any reason" absentee voting in November 2000, Flynn said 11 percent of the ballots were cast by absentee. By 2004, that number almost doubled.

"Just knowing that some towns were going to hit the high mark, we decided to go with that 40 percent," Flynn said. "We know it's become more popular and also know we have a lot of residents out of the U.S. and can only vote by absentee ballot."

As of Monday, she said just more than 30,000 absentee ballots had been requested statewide and about 27,000 issued.

"I would think we'll see 400,000 absentee ballots if everybody voted according to that 40 percent," she said.

Gardiner City Clerk Deirdre Berglund said there are indications that city might experience a record turnout.

During the last presidential election, she said she and her workers processed about 700 absentee ballots. This time, she expects to process 1,700.

Berglund received more than 100 absentee requests as of last Friday, 75 of those online.

A significant improvement to absentee voting allows clerks to process accumulated ballots the day before elections, she said, streamlining operations significantly for election day itself.

"We can get them all processed and entered into the machines," Berglund said. "So this should help with reporting time. People are anxious and will be able to get the results earlier."

Absentee ballot applications for people in participating towns are available at www.maine.gov/cgi-bin/online/AbsenteeBallot/index.pl

Mechele Cooper -- 623-3811, Ext. 408

mcooper@centralmaine.com

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