OLYMPIA – Election Day dawns Thursday and won’t set until 8 p.m. Nov. 7.
This is the reality for candidates and their strategists in a state where 34 counties, including Snohomish, conduct voting entirely with mail ballots.
“Once the ballots arrive in the mailbox it’s like Groundhog Day,” said Democratic campaign consultant Terry Thompson. “Election Day is every day.”
Ballots will be mailed Thursday or can be picked up at a county election office any time that day.
Candidates know their fate will begin to be determined almost immediately.
By next Sunday 20,000 voters in Snohomish County – nearly 10 percent of the expected turnout – will have likely marked their ballots and sent them in.
That means campaigns are ramping up their efforts to contact voters on the phone, in the mail or at the front door before they check their choices.
In statewide races, it means increasing the number and frequency of ads on television and radio, the most powerful form of influencing voters.
This formula for outreach is not new but with the proliferation of mail ballot counties, campaigns start doing it earlier. With a greater percentage of people voting within days of getting their ballot, campaigns need to act sooner to reach voters before they decide.
It’s been evolving this way in Snohomish County. In the November 1995 election, 38,931 voters cast mail ballots while nearly 100,000 went to the polls. Ten years later, absentee voters totaled 133,739 and poll voters numbered 42,198.
In that period, consultants refined their strategies for targeting voters to ensure none are ignored. Thus only minor tinkering is needed this year as the county holds its first all-mail-ballot general election, one in which 70 percent of its 337,500 registered voters may participate.
While the timing gears have changed, most voters haven’t, said Chris Vance, former chairman of the state Republican Party and now a principal with the Seattle public affairs Gallatin Group.
“We have enough experience now to know most voters still hold on to their ballots until Election Day,” Vance said. “You still need to be advertising; you still need to be sending mail and you still need to be ringing doorbells.
“Your get-out-the-vote starts three weeks out but you still need people doing the other things every day,” he said.
Cathy Allen, an adviser to Democratic candidates, said the evolution is making campaigns more expensive because the campaigning goes on longer – even though voting behavior isn’t changing much.
When that mail ballot arrives, it “signals the start of the pile of brochures and voter pamphlets and the beginning of conversations around the dinner table and around the office on how we’re going to vote on this,” she said
The challenge for candidates is “looking for what is the moment the average undecided makes up their mind,” she said.
Research shows only 8 to 10 percent of voters mark ballots that first weekend, she said, with most voters waiting until the final week to decide.
Those early voters tend to be diehard partisans who won’t need much swaying from candidates, seniors and conscientious voters who never miss an election, said Dave Mortenson, a Republican consultant whose clients include state Sen. Dave Schmidt of Mill Creek.
Voters behave in keeping with their personalities, said Jeff Bjornstad, chief of staff to Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., who’s advised on campaigns in the county for two decades.
Type A-personality people will act quickly, and the procrastinators will treat the ballot like an unpaid bill and wait until the last moment to deal with it, he said. (In the September primary in Snohomish County, 40,000 ballots arrived on Election Day and after.)
“In the last 10 days (of an election) you still have a chance to make an impression on those who are hanging on to their ballots,” he said.
Thompson said he aims at that bloc more than the early voters.
“People that are persuadable wait until the end,” said Thompson, whose clients include Steve Hobbs of Lake Stevens, the Democrat challenger to Schmidt. “You want to get your message out and campaign like the last weekend is the decisive day.”
The statewide spread of voting by mail is bringing greater sophistication to campaigns’ ability to track who votes, how often they vote and when, said Secretary of State Sam Reed.
Records exist of voting history. In an election, county election officials will provide, upon request, daily reports of who’s returned their ballot. With that information, campaigns save time and money by not sending mail to or phoning them.
This improved targeting has led to upgraded and extended get-out-the-vote efforts by campaigns.
Brooke Davis, Larsen’s campaign manager, said the “match back” process is pivotal to ensuring those voters identified as supporters are contacted to ensure they send in their ballot.
To help out, volunteers who once might have driven people to the polls are now preparing to deliver people’s sealed ballots to the elections office.
“Before, Election Day meant Tuesday,” she said. “Now, it seems like Election Day is the day they get their ballot.”
Reporter Jerry Cornfield: 360-352-8623 or jcornfield@ heraldnet.com.
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