Early vote by mail alters pace of a race

Wonder why those nasty John Adler and Jon Runyan political ads featuring miniature donkeys and grainy photos of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi began airing on television when it was still beach weather?

Credit New Jersey's increasingly popular vote-by-mail program, which experts predict could be used by as many as 20,000 people in the Third Congressional District this year.

Voters have been casting ballots since Sept. 16 in the district's contentious race between Democratic incumbent Adler and Runyan, his Republican challenger, a contest that pollsters say is too close to call. That put pressure on the candidates' campaigns to make their sales pitches early and loud.

"It's like Christmas shopping. The stuff gets out on the shelf a little earlier every year," said Burlington County Democratic chairman Joseph Andl.

If the vote-by-mail trend continues to grow, "the push is going to start and the money's going to get spent earlier and earlier every year. It's not a bad thing, because it gets more people to vote," Andl said.

Bill Layton, his GOP counterpart in Burlington County, said Republicans had made early voters a priority.

"We work those people who have requested those ballots," he said. "We have a concerted effort going on right now. A number of volunteers are dedicated to tracking those people and making sure they voted."

The Republican Party has done well with mail ballots, Layton said. Even in 2008, when the Obama wave helped Democrats capture several local offices held by Republicans, the Burlington County GOP was ahead among those who voted by mail.

In the Adler-Runyan race - one of the tightest and most closely watched in the country - voter turnout is expected to be low. Every mail ballot is significant. To woo potential early voters, the candidates began trading shots in TV ads around Labor Day.

In the commercials, Adler points out that Runyan gets a tax break on his 25-acre Mount Laurel estate because 20 of those acres are used for grazing miniature donkeys and harvesting timber. Runyan argues that Adler is a liberal and ties him to Pelosi (D., Calif.).

County clerks in the district say mail votes have increased significantly since 2005, when the state initiated "no-excuses" absentee balloting. The measure removed the requirement that a voter present an excuse, such as being physically unable to get to a poll, in order to obtain a mail ballot.

Last year, the state made voting by mail even easier by eliminating some deadlines and allowing voters to request ballots for present and future elections.

New Jersey is one of only eight states that allow no-excuse mail balloting, according to the Progressive States Network, a think tank in New York.

Campaigns and county parties like mail ballots "because you have a sure thing," acting Ocean County Clerk Scott Colabella said. "You're going to reach out to a voter because they have applied vs. reaching out to a voter who you think may turn up at the polls."

About 20,000 voters have requested mail ballots in the Third District, which covers Burlington and Ocean Counties as well as Cherry Hill in Camden County. More are expected to apply for ballots by mail from their county clerk's office before the deadline at the end of business Tuesday.

Voters may apply for ballots in person until 3 p.m. the day before the election by going to the county clerk's office.

Ballots must be returned by Election Day, Nov. 2, when they will be counted.

Off-year elections, which do not feature presidential and gubernatorial races, typically see about 210,000 ballots cast in the Third District. In 2006, the last off-year, roughly 12,500 came in by mail.

By Friday, mail ballots had been sought by about 12,000 voters in Ocean County, 6,000 in Burlington County, and 2,000 in Cherry Hill.

So far, about 1,100 ballots - 600 from registered Democrats, 310 from Republicans, and 190 unaffiliated - have been returned by voters in heavily Democratic Cherry Hill, where Adler lives.

In Mount Laurel, where Runyan lives, roughly 980 voters - 340 Democrats, 410 Republicans, and about 230 unaffiliated - have requested mail-in ballots. The county clerk did not supply figures on how many of the ballots had been returned.

Mail ballot information is such an important part of a get-out-the-vote operation that counties have figured out how to deliver data to political organizations on a regular basis.

In Camden County, for example, parties and campaigns can view a website and see who has requested a ballot and whether he or she has returned it.

Statewide, between 2003 and 2009, the number of people who voted by mail increased from about 2.3 percent of those voting to 5.7 percent.

Even in relatively calm races, such as those this year in Cape May County, mail balloting is up. Every day, her front counter has a stack of returned ballots waiting to be processed, said County Clerk Rita Marie Fulginiti.

"The ratio of mail-in ballots to the total number of votes cast is inching up at every election," she said.