VOTING VIA THE MAILBOX ON THE RISE ABSENTEE BALLOT USAGE SETS RECORD.

Byline: Alexa Haussler Staff Writer

``I Voted'' stickers and polling booths may soon join the ranks of the eight-track tape, with record numbers of voters in California and nationwide expected to vote in November by mail or at early voting sites.

More than one in five California voters in the March presidential primary cast their ballots by mail, and campaign experts and election officials expect even more to cast absentee ballots before the Nov. 7 presidential election.

``No candidate in California these days can afford not to have some sort of vote-by-mail campaign. It has become another weapon in the campaign arsenal,'' said political consultant Sherry Bebitch Jeffe.

In Los Angeles County, 20 percent of votes cast in the 1998 general election were absentee ballots, compared to 5 percent two decades earlier.

Plus, as a further encouragement for people to vote before Election Day, Los Angeles County is installing walk-in, computerized ``touch screen'' voting places that will be open during the three weeks before the Nov. 7 elections.

But critics fear the surge in early voting allows for voter fraud, and favors candidates and campaigns that have more money.

``Our concerns are election fraud, pure and simple. Mail-in and absentee ballots are just about the easiest way to steal an election,'' said Deborah Phillips, chairwoman of the Arlington, Va., based Voter Integrity Project.

The county registrar's office will distribute absentee ballots starting Tuesday.

Candidates are taking advantage of the trend by pouring more money into sustained advertising campaigns and increasingly sending absentee ballot requests to registered voters along with campaign materials.

Plus, early voting provides easier access for seniors, the disabled and those whose busy schedules make it hard to get to the polls in a single day's time slot.

``It's just a month-long election day,'' said Bill Carrick, a consultant working on the re-election campaigns of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Los Angeles District Attorney Gil Garcetti. Carrick said both campaigns this year started their advertising campaigns earlier than in the past.

``You have to begin them earlier and they have to be more intense earlier,'' he said. ``The weight of your advertising budget or your mail budget has to be more intense as opposed to the traditional old days.''

The trend also has changed the pace of campaigns, which traditionally heated up right before Election Day. Now, candidates must make a sustained effort to spread the word about their issues, records and plans.

``Last-minute smears have less of an impact because, in some cases, up to a fourth of the electorate has already voted, well before the last weekend,'' Bebitch Jeffe said.

Campaigns aren't the only ones trying to rope early voters. The American Muslim Alliance has launched an intense effort to persuade Muslim voters to cast absentee ballots in California.

California was among the first states to loosen its absentee ballot rules, when lawmakers agreed in 1978 to allow any registered voter to request an early ballot - not just those who, because of travel, illness or other reasons would be unable to go to the polls.

Four years later, absentee ballots played a pivotal role in the gubernatorial race between then-Attorney General George Deukmejian and late Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley. On Election Day, Bradley collected more votes than Deukmejian. But Deukmejian narrowly won due to an aggressive Republican effort in getting absentee ballots into the hands of GOP supporters.

Now, early and absentee voting is growing in popularity across the country. In Texas, citizens can vote at polling places for two weeks before election day. And Oregon exclusively holds all-mail elections.

In 1998, 17 percent of the nation's voters cast absentee or early ballots, said Ashley Grosse, director of studies at National Elections Studies, a Michigan-based think tank, who said the percentage will continue to increase as a result of states easing absentee ballot restrictions and Americans' hunger for time savers.

``It's convenient,'' Grosse said, ``and we are a country which is in love with convenience.''

CAPTION(S):

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Chart: A TIDE OF EARLY VOTERS

SOURCE: Secretary of State; Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder

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