State: Early voting wins at polls

In numbers that overwhelmed officials, Floridians flocked to the polls in the days and weeks leading up to this month's general election, embracing the notion of a civic duty made easier.

Across 20 counties containing nearly 80 percent of the state's electorate, more than 220,000 people cast their ballots before Nov. 5, a Times survey found. The option, known as "in-office absentee voting" or "early voting," has been available for years under Florida law but in a limited way that did not lend itself to broad use. Then the Legislature loosened restrictions in 2001.

In the first general election since the change, the public's enthusiasm for early voting drove the rate of absentee voting to impressive heights.

Sixteen percent of voters in the 20 counties cast ballots before Nov. 5, either by going to a local elections office or mailing in a traditional absentee ballot. In the much larger presidential election two years ago -- before early, in-office voting was liberalized -- pre-Election Day turnout was only 11 percent.

No one anticipated how quickly the practice would catch on. The focus of 2002 had been about Florida's retooled election system, about touch screen machines and whether the public would adapt to them. Early voting came out of nowhere in the final weeks of the campaign, emerging as one of the defining aspects of a landmark election.

Now, as state officials lay plans to expand it, the time-worn rituals of Election Day might be on the wane in Florida.

In more than two dozen other states that have launched early voting in various forms, it has tended to grow once voters got a taste of it.

Fifty-six percent of Nevada's voters showed up early in the general election, up from 34 percent in 2000. In West Virginia, Tennessee and Texas, the percentage of early voters is well above 30 percent and expected to grow.

As many as 1 in 4 voters cast their ballots early in the 2000 general election, according to a report by the National Conference of State Legislators.

And in Florida?

"Well, it will be the way it's done in the future," said Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Pam Iorio, "because it's more convenient to the customer, and the customer is the voter."

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But convenience comes at a price, say experts in states where early voting is well-established.

Early voting can increase costs for election officials and candidates. It complicates the difficult job of campaigning. And time has shown that it does not increase turnout.

The latter point was evident in Florida's first experiment with early voting. Despite the large number of people who tried it, turnout was 55 percent -- one of the lowest showings for a Florida general election over the last 40 years.

The biggest downside to early voting, according to some, is that it dilutes the tradition and reverence connected with Election Day. Among the people who share that view is George Gilbert, a veteran county elections supervisor in North Carolina, where 24 percent of the electorate voted early when the practice was introduced in 2000.

Gilbert sees the good and the bad. Because of state law and public demand, he provides early voting. But he refers to it as "a bad idea whose time has come."

He derides it as "McVoting." He bemoans the casual nature of it. And now that Florida has sampled it, he says, the proverbial horse is out of the barn.

"They will expand it because the voters want it," Gilbert predicted. "Whether it's good for them or not."

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It was happenstance that early voting took off like it did.

Lost amid the scores of changes to Florida's election law in 2001, legislators intended it as one more way to make voting easier.

For years, absentee voters had been able to complete ballots at the local elections office before Election Day. But they needed an official excuse -- a chronic illness, a religious obligation, a business trip.

When legislators removed the requirement for absentee excuses, it opened absentee voting to everyone.

Still, early in-office voting was a little-known option, even before the Sept. 10 primary, when most election supervisors were busy educating voters about new voting equipment.

"We did advertise it, but people really didn't care," said Ivy Korman, the early voting coordinator for Miami-Dade County.

The turning point came in the panicked aftermath of Sept. 10. Overburdened poll workers had caused serious problems in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, and the general election was just six weeks away. South Florida officials began to promote early voting as a way to reduce crowds on Election Day.

Then the gospel spread.

Fears about the long ballot with 10 constitutional amendments began to grip other counties. Secretary of State Jim Smith publicly appealed to all Floridians to consider voting early. Newspapers and television stations ran stories about early voting and campaigns got into the act, too.

Depending on the county, Floridians began voting two to four weeks before the election. Suddenly, early voting was a silver bullet that would save the state from another Election Day disaster.

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No one expected the concept to resonate with voters on such a mass scale, said Pasco County Supervisor of Elections Kurt Browning and other election officials. When it did, many of them were unprepared, with too few staffers and voting machines to handle the load.

In the days before Nov. 5, Browning studied the early voting numbers each morning and his jaw would drop. "This was impossible," he said. "I had to put all hands on deck to handle all the people coming into my offices."

Early voting was most pronounced in Miami-Dade and Broward, where more than 110,000 people voted before Nov. 5 at 20 local elections offices. In the Tampa Bay area, it was most prevalent in Pasco County, where 7 percent of the electorate showed up at Browning's office.

The Times survey confirms what many officials sensed when voters formed all-day lines that snaked out of courthouses and showed up on weekends to cast ballots. Enduring two- and three-hour waits with mostly good cheer, they seemed more like fans clamoring for concert tickets than citizens exercising the right to vote.

Many of them feared the long ballot would cause waits on Nov. 5. But the greater appeal, it was clear, was the novelty of early voting and the freedom it gave to fit voting more neatly into their schedules.

Florida's election officials had discovered what grocery stores, restaurants, banks and even the IRS, had known for years -- that getting consumers' attention requires accommodating their increasingly busy lives.

Still, the long early lines were an odd spectacle for election supervisors. Even with the lengthy ballot, they knew that those same voters would wait a fraction of the time, or not at all, if only they would show up on Election Day.

Said Theresa LePore, the elections supervisor in Palm Beach County: "People want instant gratification."

* * *

Politics is an unpredictable business, observes Joe Garecht, a Washington, D.C.-based consultant who works in local campaigns all over the United States. "But one thing you've always been able to control is when people go to the polls," he said.

Early voting has changed even that. "It has changed everything," Garecht said. "As a citizen I am glad to see the spread of early voting. But as a political consultant, it makes my job a lot harder and it makes the job of the candidates I work for much harder."

Candidates must start their campaigns sooner, before early voters have exercised their franchise. Then comes the task of finding out which people voted early so you don't waste money appealing to them in the final days.

At 13 cents per get-out-the-vote call for tens of thousands of voters, you don't want to fritter it away on people who've done what you want them to do, said Chris Carr, executive director of the Nevada Republican Party. "Money was tight this year," he said.

Before early voting, he said, campaign mailings would have been delivered the week before Nov. 5. This year, they arrived in people's homes beginning Oct. 19, when early voting began.

"We get a report every morning," Carr said. "Before 9 o'clock, we know how many Republicans voted early the day before . . . Looking back it was fun, but it was a logistical nightmare."

In Iowa, where early voting begins about five weeks before the election, political consultant Steve Grubbs said TV and radio campaigns are launched much earlier. But the ads continue throughout the campaign, raising the cost, he said. "You don't have the luxury of a shorter campaign."

Early voting also tends to favor incumbents, Grubbs said, because challengers have less money to get their message out and much of it arrives late -- often too late to reach early voters.

In Iowa this year, that was more than 20 percent of the electorate.

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Early voting also increases costs.

"It is not an inexpensive proposition," said Doug Lewis, executive director of the Election Center, a nonprofit group for election administrators. "It is like conducting multiple elections for every day that you do it."

It also raises a minor security issue. Counties must make sure that an early voter can't cast another ballot at the precinct polling place. When people vote days or weeks in advance, there is time to update the precinct registration books before Election Day.

But when early voting goes right up to Election Day, as it does in Florida, the system might not be fast enough. To ensure last-minute early voters don't vote again in the precinct, counties send updates to polling places. But sometimes those updates aren't delivered before the polls open, leaving a window for someone to commit fraud.

Such a person would be caught in a post-election audit, but there is no way to rescind that person's vote. In an ultra-close election, it could present a problem.

But it is rare that people try to vote twice, election officials say. The deterrent, they say, is the realization that their lone act probably will not sway an election, and could result in a third-degree felony.

* * *

Florida will debate the expansion of early voting in the coming months as a task force appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush reviews changes in election law for next year's legislative session. The panel will be co-chaired by Smith, who supports an expansion.

Early voting also will be on the agenda in January when Florida's election supervisors meet in Citrus County to discuss changes. Some supervisors favor the idea, some oppose it. Others are lukewarm.

Consider the difference between Fred Galey, the supervisor in Brevard County, and Pam Iorio of Hillsborough.

"It's going to create more trouble than it's worth," said Galey, who cites the increased cost of staffing and printing ballots for early voting centers. He says the media created this year's early voting frenzy, and if Florida tells people when to vote, "they'll do it."

But Iorio says if it makes voting easier, then it's a good thing. She wants the state to expand early voting locations to libraries. "No one's forcing them to vote early," she argues. "They vote when they're comfortable."

These and other philosophical points are certain to be debated in Florida, as they were in other states.

Opponents argue a ballot cast out of convenience might not be the act of a dedicated, informed voter.

"I think it should be a little inconvenient to vote," said Marcus Kindley, the Republican chairman in Guilford County, N.C. "I think it should be something you put thought to and care about doing."

People can do all that and vote early, argued Browning, the elections supervisor in Pasco.

"I'm a traditionalist. I like the whole concept of Election Day," he said. "But when people are ready to make a choice, they don't want any more ads. They've already made up their minds."

"I think we ought to capitalize on it," he said. "The fact is, a vote is a vote is a vote."

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Lucy Morgan

From the Times state desk