If voters want to vote by mail this June 6, they will have to send in an application. The all-mail ballot bill, AB 707 by Assemblymember Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley), failed to find the support it needed in Sacramento to become anything more than an idea.

As a result counties will establish polling sites and voters will have the option as usual to either go to the polls on Election Day or request a vote-by-mail ballot. Those voters signed up as permanent absentee voters will automatically be mailed a ballot on May 8.

The California Association of Clerks and Election Officials supported the measure to allow county Boards of Supervisors the option of conducting the June 6, 2006 election by all-mail ballot. The urgency measure would have provided counties with a solution to the challenge of implementing a voting system that is compliant with the 2002 federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) that requires each polling station in the nation to provide a voting system where voters with disabilities can vote independently and privately in a federal election.

Research shows that all-mail ballot elections can reduce costs by as much as 30 percent and turnout is increased. Current law only allows all-mail ballot elections for special elections conducted for certain purposes. In Santa Cruz County, turnout in a special election typically is in the low 20 to 30 percent range, whereas most all-mail ballot elections held in this county turnout has exceeded 50 percent.

Without the mail ballot option, Santa Cruz County is moving ahead with plans to implement a new voting system manufactured by Sequoia Voting Systems. The County Clerk is going to ask the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors on March 28 for approval to sign a contract with Sequoia to purchase the new voting system. The new system will provide a paper-based optical scan voting system with vote-tabulating scanners at each polling site that will alert voters if they incorrectly mark their ballot and it cannot be counted. In addition, the system provides a touch screen device with a voter-verified paper audit trail that meets the accessibility requirements of HAVA.

At this late date, since Sequoia just obtained Monday the state certification required, the new voting system will be phased in over the June and November elections in 2006. In June, voters will continue to use the Mark-A-Vote ballot used in Santa Cruz County since 1995 and accessible touch screens will be introduced at various polling sites to be announced.