Pre Paid Postage and Voting Equity

This November, it is calculated that approximately 80,000 Ottawa County residents could be voting by absentee ballot. Some of these will be longtime Absentee voters, some of them first timers. Some of them may live next to City Hall and will be able to utilize drop boxes located conveniently nearby, some will be living temporarily hundreds of miles from home. 

To level the playing field, I believe that the County Board can and should take steps to make exercising the constitutional right to vote a little easier for everyone. But how?

Oakland County has made the decision to place pre-paid postage on all County residents’ return ballot. That is a very simple and reliable way to address the issue. However, because of our long term contract for ballot printing, such an action at this point would be cost prohibitive. 

However, since the US Post Office is committed to make sure each ballot sent within the proper time frame arrives at the proper destination regardless of postage paid, I believe it would be possible to advertise this as a service available to out of area voters if the Board makes the commitment to reimburse local clerks who must pick up this expense directly from the US Post Office. I believe this is a workable solution to the issue and, while of course I don’t believe this step will close all voting inequities here, I do believe it will be a small but meaningful step towards that. 

I realize that there is an element of uncomfortableness about an action like this on the Board, however if on the Board we only discuss and pursue policy that we’re comfortable with or that we have always done, we will never make inroads on our stated goals of increasing equity in our County and forging new possiblities for a diversifying County.