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Letter to the editor

Take your time with absentee ballot

By DIANE STEINLE, Editor of Editorials
Published January 16, 2008

During the holidays I got a call from a voter whose absentee ballot seemed to be burning a hole in his pocket. He had just received it in the mail, and he was in a big hurry to vote and mail it back in. He called the newspaper because he was upset that our editorial recommendations for the Jan. 29 election had not yet been printed.

You need to print them now, he told me, "because I've got to hurry and mail my ballot in."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because I've got to get it turned in before the rush starts," he said.

What?

A little more conversation revealed that this particular voter felt it was necessary to return an absentee ballot as soon as he received it from the county supervisor of elections. He had been laboring under the misconception that if he waited until people who vote in person began voting, his ballot might not get counted. For him, it was a race.

This is not the first time I've had this kind of conversation with voters using absentee ballots. Some think they have to turn in their ballot right away because their very request for an absentee ballot implies that they won't be present around the election to turn it in. They don't want the elections supervisor to think they told a fib to get their ballot.

They don't need to worry about that. Absentee ballots are more correctly referred to now as "mail ballots" because anyone can get one. You no longer have to claim that you won't be here to go to the polls on Election Day.

Some of the voters who have called me are elderly, and they fear they might lose their ballot if they keep it a while.

Here's my suggestion: Get yourself a big magnet and stick that baby up on the refrigerator door. Seeing your ballot there will reassure you that you haven't lost it, and you can wait until later in the campaign season to mail it.

Absentee or mail ballots, as well as early in-person voting, which started this week, have made it easier than ever for people to vote because they don't have to be present at the polling place on Election Day. But voting too early can be a bad idea.

Vote too early and the candidate you chose might not even be in the race by Election Day. Look at what is happening in the presidential primary race. Some early candidates already have fallen by the wayside. Others will soon. You don't want to waste your vote.

You also need time to research issues and candidates on the ballot. These are difficult, complicated times for our country, our state and our region. Voters must be well informed and make good choices.

Do you understand the tax reform question on the Jan. 29 ballot? Have you studied its possible ramifications, for yourself and for your state? If not, hold on to that ballot.

Some Pinellas cities have candidates running for local offices Jan. 29, and some have referendum questions on the ballot, too. Have you studied the candidates and those issues? If not, hold on to that ballot.

If you want to read what the newspaper's editorial board thinks of the ballot issues, you also need to give us time to do our research, which I can assure you is thorough. Sometimes there are revelations about a candidate late in the campaign season that might affect how you would want to vote.

Your ballot won't be discarded if you wait a little while to turn it in. According to Nancy Whitlock, communications director for the Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections Office, elections officials can't start counting absentee ballots until six days before the election, but the results are kept separate until Election Day. They continue counting through the election.

In fact, Whitlock said, you can hand-deliver your absentee ballot to supervisor of elections offices in Largo, Clearwater and St. Petersburg right up to Election Day, if you want to wait that long to make your decisions.

You can even decide on Election Day that you would rather vote at a polling place. Just take your unused mail ballot to your polling place and show that you didn't cast it. The polling places are open until 7 p.m. on Election Day.

See, there's no need to rush, especially if delaying makes you a better, more responsible voter.

Diane Steinle is editor of editorials for the North Pinellas editions of the Times. She can be reached at steinle@sptimes.com.

[Last modified January 15, 2008, 22:37:03]