VOTERS FLOCK TO MAIL-IN BALLOTS.

Byline: Lee Condon Daily News Staff Writer

Absentee ballot requests for the June 2 primary are surging to record numbers in Southern California, a spike election officials attribute to long commutes and massive mailings by candidate Al Checchi.

Applications for absentee ballots in Los Angeles County are up 44 percent over the 1994 gubernatorial primary, said Registrar Recorder/County Clerk Conny McCormack.

As of Friday, with 11 days to go until the primary, the county had received 350,618 requests for absentee ballots, breaking the record set in the June 1996 presidential primary, when 342,657 applications were received.

The tally is also 44 percent higher than the 243,064 applications the registrar had received 11 days before the June 1994 primary.

In Ventura County, election officials expect voters to request 58,000 absentee ballots by the Tuesday deadline, an increase of 68 percent over the 1994 primary.

``This is a rather startling trend for a primary,'' said McCormack, attributing much of the increase to the Checchi gubernatorial campaign, which sent out 3 million absentee applications statewide as part of a campaign mailer.

``Close to 100,000 of them are from the Checchi campaign,'' McCormack said. ``They are coming in every day by the boxload.''

In Ventura County, election officials also attributed the increase to voters' inability to get to polling booths because of long job commutes.

``The county has a very high percentage because a lot of people work in Los Angeles, especially those from Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks,'' said Bruce Bradley, assistant registrar of voters. ``(The cities) are basically bedroom communities for L.A. If you have to be at work in L.A. by 8 a.m., you better leave before 7 a.m.''

Polling precincts are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.in Ventura and Los Angeles counties June 2.

Favors GOP

Traditionally, high numbers of absentee ballots have favored Republican candidates, but that may change as mail-in voting becomes more popular, said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a professor with the Claremont Graduate School's Center for Politics and Policy.

``Democrats are becoming more and more adept at vote-by-mail,'' Jeffe said. ``Absentee voting is becoming more and more reflective of the broader electorate.''

In 1982, everyone thought Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley had won the governor's race. But Republicans had launched a major absentee voter campaign and when all the votes were tallied, Republican George Deukmejian ended up 113,000 votes ahead.

``It was the first time it was clear absentee voting turned an election,'' Jeffe said.

In the 1996 43rd District Assembly race, the tally was too close to call on Election Day. Weeks later, Glendale Democrat Scott Wildman came up from behind on the strength of absentee votes and won the seat.

Absentee requests due

With absentee ballot requests due to county election headquarters by Tuesday, McCormack said she is concerned that applications addressed to campaign offices may not arrive by the deadline.

Instead of returning campaign-associated applications to campaign offices, McCormack is advising voters to return applications on the back sample ballots directly to the county registrar.

Campaign offices are allowed to hold applications for 36 hours before forwarding them to the registrar. Campaigns can use that time to identify voters who may be supporters.

``There is a big problem because the voter is unaware there is going to be a delay in the turnaround for the application to get to the registrar,'' McCormack said.

Secretary of State Bill Jones said he plans to ask the Legislature to change the rules so that applications sent out by campaign go directly to the registrar. He also wants to keep campaigns from sending out applications within days of the deadline. Jones said he is not sure whether he will be able to get the Legislature to take up the issue before the November general election.

``My concern is that the voter is not disenfranchised,'' Jones said. ``We've recommended against making late requests. There's no time for turnaround. The law was not designed for the volume were seeing.''

McCormack is especially concerned that Jane Harman's gubernatorial campaign put 700,000 absentee applications in the mail this week. While Checchi sent out his mail in April, McCormack said Harman waited until the deadline was almost here.

``I haven't even seen it yet,'' McCormack said of the Harman mailer.

Kam Kuwata, campaign manager for Harman, said campaign officials sent out the absentee applications last week because they wanted the mailer to come out while voters are most interested in the election.

Kuwata said the applications are being given to registrars the day the campaign receives them.

``We are hand-delivering to the big counties, overnight delivering to counties that are at some distance and faxing to other out-of-the-way counties,'' Kuwata said.

Allegations of delays

Jones also wants more control because of allegations that the Checchi campaign held on to application requests beyond the 36-hour limit.

Darry Sragow, campaign manager for Checchi, denied that the campaign intentionally held on to the applications longer than it should have.

Most of the delays involved applications coming in from rural northern counties, he said. If the campaign were to start over it would have routed the application, not just to Santa Ana, but also to a second, Northern California address.

Sragow said most Checchi applications have already been sent in because the campaign stopped mailing them out May 6. Still, the campaign has complied with Jones' request that it send out a mailer to all the people it sent applications to, letting them know that if they do not get a absentee ballot, the deadline was missed and they should try to go to the polls and vote.

McCormack said there was some lag time in some of the requests the county received from the Checchi campaign, but that it was more of a problem for other counties.

``We noticed some postmarks that were old,'' McCormack said. ``We were not the problem though. (The Checchi campaign) was getting them to me by early May.''

TUESDAY DEADLINE

Absentee ballot requests are due at the registrar's headquarters by Tuesday.

For those who do not get an absentee ballot, the registrar has set up an ``emergency absentee voting period'' from May 27 through June 1. Voters must go to the registrar's headquarters at 12400 Imperial Highway in Norwalk to get an absentee ballot. The ballot can be filled out right away or returned to the main office or any polling place on election day. The hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

CAPTION(S):

box

BOX: Tuesday deadline (see text)