Pencils up cost of absentee ballots
In particular, small green pencils inserted with every absentee ballot could add USD 900 to the total cost of mailings thanks to changes in United States Postal Service rates.
Ray Daiutolo Sr., spokesman for the United States Postal Service, said the change in cost is due to changes in the rate structure for all mailings separating most letters and packages into those that can be processed by machine and those requiring more manual handling.
The addition of the pencils, Daiutolo said, creates a thickness in each envelope making them difficult to process by machine and thus adding to the cost.
County Election Bureau executive director Elizabeth M. Dries said postal rates per envelope will rise from 61 cents to 97 cents because of the new postal regulations put into effect in May 2007.
Though her office has received application for only 867 absentee ballots so far, Dries said in 2004, a comparable election year, the number reached 2,500, and Datte estimated the number of absentees could be even higher this year.
Voters interested in receiving absentee ballots due to either disability or illness – making it difficult for them to reach the polls – and those who will be out of the county on Nov. 6 have until Oct. 30 to apply for absentee ballots.
They have until Nov. 2 to return completed ballots by mail or in person to the Schuylkill County Election Bureau.
Other counties will not likely incur the same cost as Schuylkill County this year despite the change in postal regulations.
Passarella said his county counts the average 3,000 to 4,000 absentee ballots they receive a year – as many as 14,000 in gubernatorial election years and 26,000 in presidential election years.
Still he does not expect much of an increase in the cost of sending out absentee ballots.
Regis Young, director of the Butler County Bureau of Elections, said he did use optical scanners to count absentees but discarded them on the grounds of inefficiency when he discovered memory cards used in the machines could be programmed with only ten precincts at a time.
Young, who is also chairman of the Association of Western Pennsylvania County Election Personnel, a mirror organization of the eastern group, said black ink was always sufficient for the county's optical counters and knows of no requirement by any machine vendor to send pencils with absentee ballots.
Instead of trying to count the less than 1,000 absentee ballots his county receives on average each year on election night, Young has poll workers tally absentee results at polling places and enters the results the following day.
The Democratic State Committee took Young to court on Election Day 2006 in an attempt to force him to count absentees earlier but the court ruled in his favor.
Dries said another added cost is due to added weight of two ballots, since one is included for Supreme Court, Superior Court, Commonwealth Court and Judge of the Common Pleas Court retentions.
Locally voters will choose whether to retain Common Pleas Judges William E. Baldwin and Jacqueline L. Russell.
They will also decide whether to retain one Justice on the state Supreme Court, three judges of the state Superior Court and three judges of the Commonwealth Court.
Daiutolo said the second ballot would bring the weight of the absentee mailing just over an ounce requiring a higher mailing fee.
He said Pottsville postal officials would try to work with the county to cut down the mailing cost by changing the position of the pencil in the envelope.
He said postal officials hoped they could bring costs down to at least 75 cents per mailing.
Datte said county officials decided to go ahead with the mailing as is this year despite cost because some ballots have already been sent and because instructions say to use the enclosed pencil.
