Late last week Johnson County voters started receiving advance mail ballot application forms from the election office for the Nov. “local” general election.
JoCo Election Commissioner Fred Sherman responded to our questions about this mailing in an email exchange on Monday.
Election Commissioner Sherman Answers Questions about Mailing
Q1: What group of JoCo voters received Advance Voting Ballot Application forms for the Nov. 2023 general election? How many were sent? What was the approximate cost for paper, printing and postage?
Sherman: The mailer was sent to only “active” Jo Co registrants. Total sent: 417,856. Total postage: $65,647.28
Estimated cost for printing: $0.15/piece for total of approximately $63k. About 397,000 of the mailers were sent at Non-Profit Mail Rate of about $0.20, and about 20k mailed at a higher per unit cost – based on not being able to standardize those mailing addresses.
For reference, the postcards sent for the 2023 primary election cycle in Jo Co cost approximately $0.10 per piece for printing. Postage for the post cards sent prior to the August election was approximately $0.35/piece. That would put a delivered post card in August at $0.45/piece compared to the approx. $0.35/piece for the application mailer.
The total overall cost for this recently mailer is higher because we are mailing individual pieces to all active registered voters, compared to the household mailers for the postcards mailed for the August primary election. Also, the primary election did not cover the entire county.
Q2: What can you tell me about the approval process for this mailing? Who approved the mailing? Was this a decision by your office or the Board of County Commissioners?
Sherman: The decision to mail the Jo Co 2023 general election mailer piece, that does include a pre-filled application for a mail-ballot request, was made by me under my authority as the County Election Officer for Johnson County.
I did inform staff with both the Jo Co County Mangers Office (CMO), and staff at the Secretary of State Office (SOS) as I developed this mailing piece earlier this year, and prior to sending out the mailer when the final artwork proofs were produced. My informing both the CMO staff and the SOS staff was only an FYI – as I did anticipate negative feedback from some voters on this matter.
Today we have received well over 1,000 completed applications for mail ballots for the November 2023 general election. I have personally replied to about a half-dozen phone calls from voters with concerns about this 2023 Jo Co general election mailer.
My motivation for including the pre-filled application for a mail-ballot request with this mailer is: I have concerns with the Jo Co election-day voter capacity for the November 5, 2024 general election.
Based on my current forecast for the November 2024 election, I anticipate that ~380,000 ballots will be cast in Johnson County for the 2024 general election – see attached pdf.
Attachment to email reply by JoCo Election Commissioner Fred Sherman.
Based on the 2016 and 2018 Federal general election numbers for Jo Co, we received and processed about 45k mail ballots for those two federal general elections. The 2020 general election was unique with Covid issues and such, but we processed just north of 150k mail ballots for that federal general election, or a bit more than three times the number of mail ballots received and processed in the prior two federal elections. The Jo Co Election Office did send out a pre-filled mail ballot application in May of 2020 for both the primary and general elections of 2020.
For the 2022 general election the mail ballot numbers received and processed in Jo Co dropped to only about 35k total ballots. My assumption is that much of the national debate and turbulence over mail ballots nationally and in general - did partly contribute to the reason behind the drop in numbers below an expected “normal” amount of 45k mail ballots Jo Co could have received for 2022, or the drop from the 2016 and 2018 mail ballot numbers.
Generally the past in-person voting numbers for Jo Co is about 50/50, or 45/55, or 55/45 between in-person election day voting and advance in-person voting. The data from past elections do show that in-person voting on election day tends to trend as a higher share for primary elections vs. the in-person voting on election day for the general elections, but in general, the turnout rates of in-person advance voting vs. in-person election day voting is roughly about the same – as was the case for the November 2022 general election for Jo Co.
If my forecast projection of 380,000 total ballots to be cast for the November 2024 general election in Jo Co is correct, I anticipate that 150k voters will vote in-person during advance voting, and 150k voters will vote in-person on election day. That forecast is only valid if vote by-mail rate in Jo Co can be at a 80k number for the November 2024 general election.
Jo Co has never voted more than 133k in-person voters during advance voting - which was done in 2016. Jo Co has never voted more than 126K voters for in-person election day – which was the number for the 2022 August primary election.
That 126k voters for election day rate in August of 2022 equates to just over 10k voters per hour for the 7am to 7pm timeframe the polls were open in November of 2022, or a bit more than 166 voters processed per minute.
For the primary and general elections in 2024, the Jo Co polling sites will be open from 6am to 7pm, so we do gain an extra hour of election day voting capacity in 2024 on the two election days. Even with that extra hour of being open in 2024, processing 150k voters on election day for 13-hours equates to the need to process on average - 192 voters per minute. I have concerns on if I have enough machines and other needed equipment to accommodate that rate election day in-person voters in 2024. If not, the lines on election day in Jo Co could be very long.
I do have confidence that we can easily accommodate way more than 150k voters for advance in-person voting in November 2024, as advance voting in Jo Co will be offered for 130+ hours of open voting time, vs. the only 13-hours of voting time on election day.
Q3: Was this a one-time decision for the Nov. 2023 election, or is this a new precedent for future countywide elections?
Sherman: To be determined (TBD)
Q4: Why was “Return Service Requested” not part of the return address like in past mailings from the JoCo Election Office? Or was the mailing list pre-checked against National Change of Address? Was there some sort of feedback from this mailing so “inactive” voters can be discovered?
Sherman: Our vendor for printing, processing and mailing this mailer piece checks addresses against the Post Office as part of the pre-sort process, this includes NCOA, address standardization, etc.
We have already done the yearly NCOA check earlier in 2023.
Comments from County Commissioners
County Commissioner Charlotte O’Hara
So basically we're going back to COVID protocol, based on Election Commissioner, Fred Sherman's fear that we won't be able to accommodate his estimate of 150,000 in person election day voter turnout. It appears he is spending $65,647.28 on a dry run to see how many people he can get to use mail in ballots rather than voting advanced in person or voting on election day.
It is very troubling this decision was developed and made without any input or any notification to the BOCC. Where is the spirit of collegiality, working together for the good of all of Johnson County? Is it good protocol for elected officials to find out about this mailing to 417,856 voters from the media or finding this request for an advance ballot in our mailbox?
I would assume that Election Commissioner, Fred Sherman is aware of the distrust of our elections that a good percentage of the Johnson County voters harbor. So why this stealth move, unleashed on the voters when they go to their mailbox and find a filled out request form for an advanced ballot? Now I have to make sure I find this unsolicited and not required by state statute piece of mail from the election office with my personal information on it to make sure it doesn't fall into nefarious use?
The lack of transparency, the spending of over $65,000,647.28 of OUR tax dollars, the additional erosion of public trust in our election process and the lack of communicating/working with the BOCC are all great concerns for me.
Personal information for JoCo poll workers apparently was sent to China via Konnech in 2022, so what's not to trust in the decision making at the Johnson County Election Office? This unilateral decision is at a minimum bad optics and does nothing to assure the voters in JoCo that the Election Office takes the issue of election integrity seriously.
Commissioner Charlotte O’Hara, Oct. 12, 2023.
Others
Requests for comments about this mailing were also sent to JoCo Board of County Commissioners Chairman Mike Kelly and Commissioner Michael Ashcraft.
This article will be updated when their comments are available.
The impact of vote by mail is mixed. Proponents argue that vote by mail facilitates participation among groups that experience low voter turnout, such as elderly Americans and Native Americans.
While vote by mail appears to increase turnout for local elections, there is no evidence that it significantly expands participation in federal elections. Moreover, it raises concerns about privacy, as citizens voting at home may come under pressure to vote for certain candidates, and it increases the risk of fraud.
If the election office lacks the volunteers to accommodate election day voting, Sherman should ask for a budget increase. There's apparently plenty of money due to the recent large tax increases. Trying to push more voting into mail in ballots is certainly controversial, especially when done by an unelected bureaucrat.
If the election office lacks the volunteers to accommodate election day voting, Sherman should ask for a budget increase. There's apparently plenty of money due to the recent large tax increases. Trying to push more voting into mail in ballots is certainly controversial, especially when done by an unelected bureaucrat.
For Mr. Sherman to expect an ADDITIONAL 30,000 turnout on top of the already incredible increase of 54,000 2020-over-2016 voters is "interesting".