San Mateo County to experiment with mail-only voting

Kevin Mullin authored the all-mail voting bill. Kevin Mullin authored the all-mail voting bill. Photo: Terray Sylvester, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Terray Sylvester, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close San Mateo County to experiment with mail-only voting 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Ready or not, San Mateo County voters are about to get an up-close and personal look at the future of California elections.

Beginning this week, every registered voter in the county will be mailed a ballot for the Nov. 3 election, along with detailed information about how to make that vote count.

Forget the more than 200 traditional neighborhood polling places that Peninsula voters have used for decades. They’re gone, replaced by 32 widely spaced “universal” polling places where anyone registered in the county can vote. But voters are being encouraged to make the mailbox their new election center, which is a far cry from the communal experience of casting ballots in the garages and school cafeterias formerly filled with voting machines.

“This could become a model for the rest of the state,” Assemblyman Kevin Mullin, D-San Mateo, told a crowd of onlookers Thursday at the San Mateo County administrative offices in Redwood City. “I believe we’re out ahead of the rest of California.”

Mullin, a former South San Francisco councilman, was one of the authors last year of AB1873, which allowed San Mateo County to join Yolo County in a test of an all-mailed-ballot election.

Colorado voting system

But that San Mateo County trial took on even greater importance earlier this year when Secretary of State Alex Padilla announced his support for what’s called the Colorado voting system, which involves mailing ballots to every voter and consolidating polling places.

“This is very similar to what’s being done in Colorado, where everyone automatically gets a ballot,” Mullin said.

There’s nothing new about voting by mail, which is now how more than half of California’s voters cast their ballots. In the 2014 statewide primary, for example, more than 69 percent of the votes were cast by mail. In San Mateo County, 57 percent of the voters are on the permanent vote-by-mail list and mail ballots can make up three-quarters of those cast.

But only slightly more than 25 percent of California’s registered voters cast a ballot in the 2014 primary, which means a lot of people in San Mateo County are going to be surprised when a ballot shows up in their mailbox this week.

It’s even more important to make it easier for people to vote in off-year elections like this one, where contests for school boards, city councils and special districts top the local ballot, instead of the battles for governor or president that typically bring out far more voters.

“These elections are all about local matters, and that’s where we desperately need more voters,” said county Supervisor David Pine. “A democracy without robust voting is not the democracy we want.”

Many questions

While county officials have been working hard to spread the word about the voting changes, Mark Church, San Mateo County’s clerk and chief elections officer, expects his office will be answering plenty of questions between now and November.

“We’re targeting people with no familiarity with voting by mail,” he said. “We’re doing extensive outreach, but we know we’re going to be getting a lot of calls.”

While Oregon and Washington state already run all their elections by mail, there’s been plenty of pushback in Sacramento from legislators worried about any move to encourage all-mailed elections. The tests in Yolo and San Mateo counties, for example, can take place only for local elections and not in 2016’s presidential primary and general elections.

Only helps GOP?

“There’s some old thinking among my fellow Democrats that all-mail voting only helps Republican and conservative voters,” Mullin said. “But that’s not the case.”

Getting ballots directly into the hands of all registered voters not only lets them know that an election is coming, but also is a constant reminder to fill out that ballot sitting in the hallway or on the kitchen table, advocates say.

The new election plan is guaranteed to save the county money, Church said, by slashing the number of poll workers that have to be hired and trained. But it’s also designed to boost voter turnout and make the elections run more smoothly.

The county plans to run all-mailed elections in the November 2017 local elections and in another special election yet to be determined. A report on those trials then will be sent to the Legislature and the secretary of state.

John Wildermuth is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: jwildermuth@sfchronicle.

com Twitter: @jfwildermuth