Saint Paul Pioneer Press (Minnesota)

October 12, 2002 Saturday

LAKE OF THE WOODS COUNTY: Voting by mail makes process easy

BYLINE: RACHEL E. STASSEN-BERGER Pioneer Press

SECTION: LOCAL; Pg. 1B

LENGTH: 512 words



More than 80 percent of the state's voters -- including Gov. Jesse Ventura -- decided not to vote
in the primary election this year, but nearly two-thirds of registered voters in this county nestled
by the Canadian border cast ballots.
Jerry Stallock, a 52-year-old restaurant owner on Young's Bay in the remote Northwest Angle,
believes he knows why.
"It is so easy," said Stallock.


Like most of the voters in this county, he votes by mail.
"The vote-by-mail situation in Minnesota is really designed for precincts that have some
difficulties because of distance issues," said Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer.
Although few in this county dispute the ease of the system, not everyone is happy with it.
Grace Prothero, who was an election judge back when there was a polling place on the Angle,
said those who vote by mail miss the input of last-minute politicking.
"You get your ballot early and then you have to mail it in and things could happen that might
change your mind," Prothero said.
In precincts with just a few hundred voters, everyone votes by mail. Ballots arrive in the mail a
few weeks before the election and voters send them back by mail as well.
For the 85 or so voters who live in the Angle, that means they take their ballots to the tiny one-
room post office, the northernmost post office in the contiguous United States. George Risser,
the Angle Inlet postmaster, said that though mail only comes three times a week, "it's pretty
handy to vote by mail."
That ease -- and that ease alone -- may get more people to cast votes, according to voters here
and studies of vote-by-mail systems elsewhere.
In Oregon, which has voted entirely by mail since May 2000, turnout has dramatically increased.
Turnout in the first all-mail primary election two years ago was 16 percent higher than any
previous election, said Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury.
Harry Pierce, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party county chairman in Lake of the Woods
County, said being able to cast your ballot at your own convenience in your own home gets folks
to vote.
"I can imagine that for a good share of the people, it did make a difference in whether or not they
voted," said Pierce, 76, who votes by mail even though he lives just a few miles from Baudette.
In Baudette, the county seat, voters go to a polling place on Election Day.
"I really don't like it, but I've never really complained," Buck Webb said of sending his ballot
through the mail. Webb lives on Flag Island, one of the islands in the massive Lake of the Woods
that shares the county's name.
Beth Carlson, 38, who lives on the Angle, said she's generally happy with the vote-by-mail
system but that it would be nice to actually go to a polling place and experience the sense of
community those voters feel.
For all those reasons, some who are eligible to vote by mail still come to the county building in
Baudette to vote on election days, said Sue Ney, Lake of the Woods county auditor.
Rachel E. Stassen-Berger can be reached at rstassen-berger@pioneerpress.com.