POLITICS ASIDE:Surprises absent in October

Last week, like a growing number of you, I received my absentee ballot in the mail.

And, for once, I seriously considered filling it right out and then sending it back. I figured: done and done.

And then I realized what always keeps me from doing that: A month before the election is way too early to vote. What if something happens?

What if, say, gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides gets caught groping a campaign worker? What if half the city council candidates drop out?

What if, what if, what if?

And so I tucked my ballot back in the envelope, and I’ll probably get around to it the first days of November.

I can recall covering the City Council election for Simi Valley in the fall of 1998 (months before I joined the Daily Pilot). One of the candidates had focused much of her effort, and money, on absentee ballots — she was relatively ahead of her time this way. I knew, even though she hadn’t told me, that the initial return from the registrar of voters that would include all early absentee ballots would tell her entire story.

She was losing in that first return.

She’d lost. And her face showed she knew it.

These days, it’s required that candidates target absentee voters as more and more of the most likely voters turn to the convenience of mailing in their ballot. (It really should be postage paid, though, shouldn’t it?)

I just wonder what this shift to more absentee voting — which, in general, I support, as it should be as easy to vote as possible (and free! What’s with the needing a stamp?) — might mean, and when it will have a noticeable effect on an election.

I think that effect could come in two ways, one of which we’ve already seen in Newport Beach this year.

More on that one in a second, though.

First off, I wonder if there may come an election in which a candidate does or says something late in the race that would be an automatic deal-breaker for voters. Think Ed Muskie “crying” on a snowy day or Gary Hart cavorting about on a boat.

But this candidate does it so late that enough voters already have voted for him or her that the candidate still wins. And the numbers would be clear. Absentee votes would be, perhaps, 59% for the candidate. The election day votes would be 65% against, but by this future date so many people are voting absentee that the sheer numbers would sweep the person into office.

What then?

The other effect is that there are no longer October surprises — that big political event that alters an election. Campaigns can’t wait until the end of the month to throw a hit out on the opposition. It’s too likely that too many high-propensity voters already will have sent their ballots in. (And they’ll have had to put a stamp on it, can you believe that? OK, I’ve made my point on this, have I?) Instead, we will have September surprises.

Will have? We’re already seeing it.

If it were 10 years ago, Santa Ana Heights resident Barbara Venezia would still be in her Newport Beach District 4 council race against incumbent Leslie Daigle. The question about her potential conflict over contracts with the city wouldn’t have been raised until the last week of October instead of the last week of September.

(Separately, to dredge up a three-year old subject, this line of thinking is among the best defenses against charges that the Los Angeles Times tried to influence the state’s gubernatorial recall election in 2003. If the paper had wanted to, it would have come out with the story at least several weeks earlier.)

Given this line of thinking, maybe it is safe for me to fill out that ballot, after all.

A crowded Mess Night awaits

Wednesday morning, I (and others, admittedly) received an e-mail from former Newport Beach Mayor Steve Bromberg announcing that next week’s Mess Night, which is part of the city’s support for the 1st Battalion, 1st Marines from Camp Pendleton, is near capacity. If anyone out there is still wanting to go, quickly call (949) 644-3202, although I think the last spaces may have filled up.