Unions to push vote-by-mail at national conference of state elections officials

With an assist from Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury, two U.S. Postal Service unions plan to promote Oregon’s vote-by-mail system as a model for other states at a Portland conference of statewide election officials.

When the National Association of Secretaries of State meets at the Portland Hilton July 15-18, Bradbury’s counterparts in other states will hear from top officers of the National Association of Letter Carriers and the American Postal Workers Union, as well as U.S. Postmaster Jack Potter. Bradbury, too, will plug the merits of vote-by-mail at lunch on the conference's opening day.

Currently Oregon is the only state where mail voting is in exclusive use, though Washington is phasing it in, and several other states allow voters to cast ballots by mail.

Many labor organizations have declared support for vote-by-mail, and not just unions at the Postal Service, which stands to gain revenue from first-class stamps. Vote-by-mail increases voter turnout, especially by workers, whose schedules can make it hard to get to the polls on Election Day.

NALC Branch 82 in Portland introduced and helped pass a resolution at the national AFL-CIO convention supporting nationwide vote-by-mail.

Adam Smith, executive director of the labor-endorsed Vote By Mail Project, says vote-by-mail makes politics easier, especially for groups that know how to organize people.

“Vote by mail opened up an opportunity for organizing for organized labor,” said Smith, who will serve on a panel at the conference. “It increases the value of person-to-person contact, which is what unions are best at.”