Voting by mail makes sense for many Nebraskans

"There's no reason to reinvent the wheel," or so goes the old saying.

When it comes to voting, however, we do it every two years -- more often, in the case of special elections.

The "wheel" is the system we use to collect information from voters -- the candidates and issues they favor and oppose -- and its function is safely collecting that information and getting it to election officials.

The system that's already in place?

The U.S. Postal Service.

We already trust the USPS with all sorts of personal and financial information, so why not our ballots?

Yes, much of the business that used to be entrusted to postal workers has been shifted to the Internet, but reports of NSA spying and Internet fraud certainly don't give that channel any glaring advantage in security.

Nebraska's top election official agrees, calling for statewide expansion of all-mail voting in small precincts.

Nebraska Secretary of State John Gale, kicking off his re-election campaign, said he would support a change in state law that would allow counties to get rid of polling places in small, rural precincts and conduct elections by mail. Current law lets counties do so only if their populations are less that 10,000.

The Cornhusker state has 58 all-mail precincts out of about 1,400 statewide; voters in those precincts receive ballots by first-class mail, along with stamped return envelopes. While mail-in ballots can now be used only for issue votes such as bond referendums, Gale called for the state to explore the use of mail-in ballots for special candidate elections and recall votes.

The Lancaster County election commissioner said mail-in voting lowers the cost per ballot in small elections, but once the numer of registered voters reaches 3,000 to 5,000, the cost is virtually identical.

There are other pros and cons to mail-in balloting, according to a California study. It found that mail voting does not increase turnout in presidential and gubernatorial general elections, and may actually decrease it. In addition, those who vote by mail are more likely to skip races listed farther down the ballot.

However, it does appear to bring an average 7.6 percentage-point turnout increase in local special elections, which have lower participation rates overall.

Still, with Nebraska's high proportion of older voters, as well as families where both parents work, not to mention increasing difficulty to find election workers, the convenience of voting by mail, especially in the case of bad weather, is worth another look.