ABSENT, NOT TARDY

To some, it’s an election being decided by the U.S. Postal Service. To others, it’s a by-the-book application of a law designed to ensure that elections are, to the greatest extent possible, decided on Election Day.

That’s pretty much the choice offered by combatants in the ongoing squabble over absentee ballots in the March 5 special election in Portland for a vacant state Senate seat. After a recount in the five-way race, Democrat Michael Brennan leads Republican Sally Vamvakias by 11 votes. There are 37 disputed ballots, rejected by local election officials as improperly marked. A bipartisan seven-member Senate committee – three from each party and an independent – will review those ballots and recommend their disposition to the full Senate.

Then there are some reported 36 absentee ballots, postmarked on the Saturday or Monday before the Tuesday election but not delivered until Wednesday. The Brennan side is quite happy to stick with the law that’s been on the books for nearly a half-century that requires absentee ballots be returned to the town clerk by the time the polls close. Team Vamvakias says voters should not be disenfranchised by pokey postmen and its wants the votes counted. If not counted, it wants the contents of those ballots made public. There even have been mutters from within the GOP about deliberate acts of postal subterfuge.

The two batches of ballots illustrate important distinctions in the process of reviewing, and potentially changing, election results. Local elections officials are charged by law with culling out improperly marked ballots during the counting process. Those ballots may not be counted at that time, but they are set aside for later evaluation if the number of culled ballots exceeds the margin of victory. Then they are counted if the voters’ intentions can be determined. It’s a fair and reasonable procedure in which the need of local officials to make on-the-spot decisions is balanced by more careful inspection when time permits.

The absentee ballot situation is different in that what is fair and reasonable here is a firm deadline. By law, absentee ballots are available at least 30 days before an election, they can be requested by mail, telephone, fax or through a family member or an unrelated third person. The voter needs offer no reason for requesting an absentee ballot. The ballot can be returned to the clerk in person or by mail, family member of unrelated third person. With that kind of convenience and ease, it is not unreasonable to require absentee voters to meet the same deadline imposed upon in-person voters – get the ballot in the box before the polls close. Besides, who waits until Saturday or Monday to mail something that absolutely must be in the addressee’s hands on Tuesday?

Every Legislature makes adjustments to Maine election law. This Legislature, for example, enacted a package of changes just a year ago that included making absentee voting even easier. Although there are late absentee ballots every election, discarding them did not become an unconscionable outrage until now.

The issue, however, is not just that absentee voters should be held to the same standard as in-person voters. Some lawmakers now are suggesting the law be changed to count absentee ballots postmarked on or before Election Day but received later. That would mean that the polling place controls that the law requires and the public expects – clerks, wardens, secure areas – would have to be maintained for days after an election at every town office and city hall in the state just in case a tardy absentee ballot trickles in. For the sake of fairness, fiscal prudence and sanity, a tardy ballot should be counted as an unexcused absence.