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(s)Elections See other (s)Elections Articles Title: POSTAGE PRESENTS A PROBLEM FOR SOME VOTERS (Some Oregon mail in ballots weigh too much for standard postage) Participating in the general election will cost Lane County voters an extra 17 cents, and the news is giving some of them fits. Chalk it up to a candidate-rich and measure-heavy environment, said county elections official Annette Newingham. So many contests and measures had to be included that the ballot, on heavy card-stock paper, wound up being 2 inches longer than normal, pushing it, plus the secrecy envelope, plus the main return envelope, just beyond the 1-ounce weight limit for a 42-cent stamp. There was no way to shrink the ballot and keep it legible, Newingham said. “I’ve had a lot of people mad at me because of this,” she said. Jim Stephenson, who lives in Santa Clara, said he mailed his ballot in on Saturday with a 42-cent stamp on it instead of the 59-cent one required. He worried that his ballot might be returned to him but not in time to resend it, he said. “You feel like you’re up in the air without a parachute,” he said. A call by The Register-Guard to the Lane County elections office confirmed that his ballot had arrived, either because it weighed a little less than an ounce or because it slipped through the post office screening. U.S. Postal Service officials on Tuesday said they were getting reports from some areas that some Lane County ballots weigh slightly less than an ounce. But the post office doesn’t weigh every single piece of mail, so a few insufficiently stamped ballots might slip through, said postal customer relations coordinator Kerry Jeffrey. Newingham said some ballot return mailings might weigh less if people don’t use the extra envelope included to provide secrecy. The county printed the 59-cent postage requirement on the ballot itself and on an insert it included in the ballot mailing that explains the measures on the ballot. But the county didn’t put the 59-cent requirement on the main return envelope. If the postage issue seems familiar, it’s because the primary election in May had a similar wrinkle. Back then, the post office upped first-class postage by a penny to 42 cents midway through the mail-in election. Many people didn’t notice the change and mailed in their ballots with the cheaper stamp. The Lane County elections office accepted those ballots. But this time around, with the stamp difference much larger, it could cost $18,000-$20,000 to pick up the tab, said Newingham. If the post office does receive a ballot envelope with insufficient postage, it will be returned to sender, Newingham said. The Postal Service can return mail that lacks enough postage in just a couple of days, especially when it’s being delivered in the same community, Jeffrey said. But that lag time worries Eugene voter Anne Gordon. In an era of tight races and when most people recall the bitterly contested 2000 presidential election, Gordon envisions a worst-case scenario of people voting in good faith, but whose ballots fail to arrive at the county by the 8 p.m. deadline on Nov. 4. “I’m mildly freaked out about it,” Gordon said. “My concern is there could potentially be hundreds or thousands of ballots that wouldn’t be counted.” Plenty of people are calling the county expressing the same concern, Newingham said. She even heard from a staff member in Sen. Ron Wyden’s office, where a worried constituent had called. Newingham and staff say they’re carefully watching the arrival of ballots, to see if they match the traditional pace. “We picked up ballots today and so far I don’t see that there’s a problem,” she said. Voters who don’t want to pay the additional postage can drop ballots off at boxes throughout Lane County. The sites are listed online at www.co.lane.or.us/Elections/DropOff.htm, and the locations are included with the ballot information. As for the stamps, while there are 59-cent stamps available, they can only be purchased from a postal clerk, not at the self-service kiosks.
Poster Comment: This references the ballots being mailed here in Lane County.
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