| I frequently find myself trying to convince clients not to obsess about the exact day absentee ballots will be mailed – they seem certain that the ballots all go out on a particular day, and that the instant the voters receive them they set to work marking their choices in order to have it ready for the letter carrier to pick up no later than the following day. They’re afraid if they don’t catch the exact timing, everything will be lost.I don’t know where this impression arises, but it can’t be from contact with the reality of the mailing and return of ballots. The patterns I’ve seen over the years are quite consistent: most of the ballots are mailed out by the Clerks about 25 to 40 days before the election. Once the ballots that have been mailed out, about 3% or 4% are returned each day. Very few are voted immediately after being received by the voter.Of course, ballots that are requested a week or two before the election are returned at a higher rate – say 10% per day – but there is still no evidence of immediate bounce-back.I am repeatedly surprised to find myself arguing with people who believe in a reality which is completely inconsistent with the data. They seem to draw reassurance from their unanimity of opinion. For anybody who is willing to trust statistics over what “everybody” knows to be true, I’ve put some together. |
| Grebner :: Absentee Ballots – temporal patterns. |
| The following data were derived from files my firm obtained from the Secretary of State, covering about 95% of the absentee ballots requested before the August 5, 2008 primary election. (The other 5% were cast in townships and cities which don’t use the Elections Divisions centralized absentee ballot system. Those units of government are generally very small and don’t encourage the use of absentee ballots.)I’ve grouped the data into weeks, in order to make it easier to digest. Even when we look at the relatively small number of ballots returned during the same week they were mailed, we don’t see many cases of immediate turnaround – four or five days is typical.These data are for an August primary, which had a relatively short ballot in most of the state. This November, the pattern will – if anything – be even more drawn out, because of the greater length of the ballot and the larger number of obscure questions for the voters to research and ponder. Mailed Returned Ballots percent cumulative 6/22 – 6/28 6/22 – 6/28 110021 0.37 0.37 6/29 – 7/05 4.54 4.91 7/06 – 7/12 17.11 22.02 7/13 – 7/19 19.15 41.17 7/20 – 7/26 14.52 55.69 7/27 – 8/03 21.19 76.88 8/04 – 8/05 11.02 87.90 not returnd 12.10 6/29 – 7/05 6/29 – 7/05 83224 0.98 0.98 7/06 – 7/12 14.74 15.72 7/13 – 7/19 23.54 39.26 7/20 – 7/26 16.56 55.82 7/27 – 8/03 21.16 76.98 8/04 – 8/05 11.41 88.39 not returnd 11.60 7/06 – 7/12 7/06 – 7/12 121337 3.46 3.46 7/13 – 7/19 23.86 27.32 7/20 – 7/26 23.20 50.52 7/27 – 8/03 26.02 76.54 8/04 – 8/05 11.02 87.56 not returnd 12.44 7/13 – 7/19 7/13 – 7/19 41565 9.61 9.61 7/20 – 7/26 29.44 39.05 7/27 – 8/03 32.12 71.17 8/04 – 8/05 14.31 85.48 not returnd 14.51 7/20 – 7/26 7/20 – 7/26 21704 16.24 16.24 7/27 – 8/03 50.02 66.26 8/04 – 8/05 19.64 85.90 not returnd 14.09 7/27 – 8/03 7/27 – 8/03 29150 50.84 50.84 8/04 – 8/05 35.09 85.93 not returnd 14.07 8/04 – 8/05 8/04 – 8/05 3651 95.59 95.59 not returnd 4.41 0.00 The extremely low return rates before about July 5 reflect the delay in mailing out ballots until the Clerks received them from their printers. |