FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) - Looking to boost voter turnout, the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly will consider an ordinance creating a system to vote by mail in borough elections.
Assemblymen Lance Roberts and Karl Kassel are backing the ordinance, which will be considered this month and could take effect in 2016, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner (https://bit.ly/1JiDzep) reported.
“Voter participation within the borough is not the greatest,” Kassel said. “I am hoping that we can get more people to participate by making it easier for them.”
Nearly 17,100 residents cast ballots in 2011, but the number dropped to 9,828 in 2013 and 11,456 in 2014, borough clerk Nanci Ashford-Bingham said.
Under the proposed revised system, the borough would mail ballots to voters two weeks before Election Day. Voters could mail them back or drop them off.
Ballots received by mail would be processed the same way as absentee and questioned ballots are processed now, Ashford-Bingham said.
The Kenai Peninsula Borough considered a voting-by-mail system. Though some remote peninsula communities use the system, borough voters in a referendum vote defeated the measure in October.
People were worried about ballot security and voters being influenced by other household members as they filled out a ballot at home, Kenai Borough clerk Johni Blankenship said. “What was interesting about it is that it passed with flying colors in all of the current by-mail precincts,” Blankenship said.
Oregon adopted voting by mail in the mid-1990s, said Mike McArthur, executive director of the Association of Oregon Counties.
“What drove it was the notion that we would get better participation,” McArthur said. “That has proven to be true. More people vote this way.”
McArthur prefers voting at his kitchen table. He can look up issues on his computer while filling out his ballot.
“I used to get in the polling place and say, ’Gee, I didn’t research this measure. I don’t know what to do.’ Now I can look it up. I can take my time and study my ballot,” he said.
Campaigns used to peak on Election Day. Campaigns now peak when ballots are mailed, McArthur said. “By the time people get their ballots, you want to have your campaign crescendo-ing,” he said.
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Information from: Fairbanks (Alaska) Daily News-Miner, https://www.newsminer.com
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