Voters requesting absentee primary ballots are up statewide. They're being heavily wooed with brochures.
By STEVE BOUSQUET and ANITA KUMAR
Published August 19, 2004
U.S. Senate candidates are scrambling to sell themselves to an extraordinary number of voters expected to cast absentee ballots before this month's primary elections.
As many as 300,000 voters have requested absentee ballots for the Aug. 31 primary, based on interviews with Senate candidates who track those requests.
Absentee and early voters, who represented 10 percent of the vote in past primaries, are estimated to rise to 15 percent to 17 percent of the total in this one.
The ease of absentee voting, concerns over touch screen voting and the disruption caused by Hurricane Charley are contributing to the increase.
With nine counties preoccupied with rebuilding efforts following last week's hurricane, the election is an afterthought in some areas.
"It's increasingly back to the grass roots stuff, chasing every vote, because the turnout could be really low now," said Wayne Garcia, campaign manager for Republican Senate candidate Johnnie Byrd.
In Miami-Dade County, 41,657 voters had requested absentee ballots as of Wednesday, more than double the requests for the 2000 primary.
Anyone who requested an absentee ballot has received a followup mail piece from one or more candidates, who obtain daily lists of voters seeking absentee ballots. Many of them may not vote, but most campaigns won't take that chance.
The followup mailers, known as "chase" pieces, are meant to sway voters who are living out of state or overseas, plan to be away on Election Day or may simply prefer to send a ballot by mail.
Republican candidate Doug Gallagher sent fliers to 150,000 voters tailored to specific counties or demographic groups. No one else is marketing a pitch to absentees in such detail at 30 cents each, plus postage, Gallagher strategist Richard Pinsky said.
Using laser printing, Gallagher sent fliers to voters in Pinellas showing him with the Sunshine Skyway behind him and the words "Pinellas County needs Doug Gallagher in the U.S. Senate."
A Hillsborough voter sees Gallagher superimposed over the Tampa skyline. A soldier in Kuwait sees the candidate with military fighter jets.
The backgrounds change, but Gallagher's basic message stays the same: "A successful Republican businessman, not a career politician or trial lawyer."
"Doug is a techno guy," Pinsky said. "What we're doing, nobody else is doing."
Unlike his opponents, Gallagher does not mention opposition to abortion and gay marriage in the mailings. He expresses support for troops in Iraq and for scrapping the tax code.
Former U.S. Rep. Bill McCollum's mailing is a large eight-page booklet, showing him twice with former President Reagan, and describing him as "a real conservative, a real leader with real experience."
Mel Martinez's absentee mailers reinforce his ties to President Bush, with photos of them together and a glowing statement by Bush on the day Martinez resigned as U.S. housing secretary. Martinez and the president are seen together four times.
Byrd, the House speaker from Plant City, has sent between 50,000 and 100,000, Garcia said. That is fewer than his opponents.
Byrd's mailing includes his support from the National Right to Life Committee, National Rifle Association and a group that represents Florida state troopers.
"A little bit of everything: law and order, national security, some social conservative issues," Garcia said.
In the Democratic primary, Peter Deutsch's campaign initially got names of 68,000 voters, some of them overseas, who requested primary ballots from the 20 largest counties. As of Monday, that number had risen to 105,000 in those 20 counties.
Robin Rorapaugh, a Deutsch adviser, said she expects the number of Democrats voting absentee to be 150,000 by Election Day.
"It's always a key part of any campaign," said Mark Penn, a Deutsch campaign consultant. "I'd be surprised if anyone didn't pay attention to that. It would say a lot."
Deutsch's two fliers tailored to absentee voters focus on health care, one of the issues he mentions most frequently on the campaign trail. "Vote Peter Deutsch for U.S. Senate. Do it for your family. Do it for your health," one flier reads.
The only major Senate candidate who has not mailed to absentees is Democrat Alex Penelas, the Miami-Dade mayor. A spokesman for Democrat Betty Castor, the former state education commissioner and University of South Florida president, declined to discuss her absentee strategy in detail.
It's more popular than ever to vote absentee in Florida.
Both major political parties are pushing absentee ballots this year, and critics of touch screen machines have suggested absentee ballots as an alternative. The Legislature in 2004 eliminated the requirement that absentee ballots be witnessed.
In heavily Democratic Broward, for instance, the 33,000 absentee requests are three times higher than in 2000, the last time Florida had both a Senate race and presidential election.
In Republican-dominated Duval, the requests totaled 26,366, twice as many as in 2000, election officials said.
In Pinellas, 20,700 voters requested absentee ballots by Tuesday. About 14,600 were requested for the 2000 primary. In Hillsborough, almost 19,000 were requested as of Wednesday, compared with about 11,600 in 2000.
All that mail costs money, and Gallagher deposited $1-million more of his own money to his campaign Wednesday. That brings his total investment to $5.9-million, a personal stake that appears unprecedented in Florida politics.
The latest donation triggers the "Millionaire's Amendment" under the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. It will permit Gallagher's Republican rivals to accept $12,000 from individual contributors, six times the normal limit.
Seven Republicans and four Democrats will compete in the Aug. 31 primaries. The two winners will face each other in the general election in November.
