Long Beach May Switch to Mail Voting : Ballots: Council will decide next month whether to use new system in April election. Backers say plan would increase turnout and save money, but other cities have reported mixed results.

The days of the ballot box may be numbered in Long Beach.

The City Council late Tuesday tentatively approved a measure that would require all votes in municipal elections to be sent through the mail or dropped off at City Hall. The concept of voting by mail has drawn mixed results in cities in California and several other states and could face its first test in Long Beach as soon as April.

City lawmakers have not decided whether they will implement the voting procedure, which was approved 5 to 4. But they will vote next month on whether to use it in the April municipal election.

“It seems like something that would turn around this lack of participation we’ve been having in elections,” said Councilman Tom Clark, the plan’s sponsor.

Advocates say it would increase turnout and save up to $154,000 per election. But opponents worry it would encourage ballot fraud and scrap the democratic tradition of the polls.

Under the procedure, voters would receive a ballot and a postage-paid envelope in the mail one month before Election Day. After filling out a ballot, a voter would drop it in the mail or deliver it to the city clerk’s office on or before Election Day. To ensure security, city officials would use a computerized address verification system and check the signature on each envelope against the signatures kept in voter registration records. They would use only watermarked ballots to prevent counterfeiting.

Proponents say absentee ballots have made voters comfortable with licking stamps instead of voting in person. They acknowledge that it is not foolproof, but insist that it is at least as secure.

Councilwoman Doris Topsy-Elvord remains skeptical of the idea, saying voting by mail is vulnerable to ballot fraud and places too much faith in the U.S. Postal Service.

If it decides to employ voting by mail, Long Beach would join other cities experimenting with the idea. At a time when requests for absentee ballots are increasing nationwide, supporters say it is the wave of the future and possibly the first step toward on-line democracy.

Since 1977, when California eliminated its requirement that absentee ballots be used only by disabled voters or those away from home, several states have experimented with variations of voting by mail. Florida and Texas have used the method in local races. In Oregon, where all special elections are by mail, Gov. John A. Kitzhaber last month vetoed a bill to expand the system to primaries and general elections. Washington was the first state to try mail-only voting.

Modesto began using voting by mail in November, 1993. Voting by mail cut the cost of running an election from $1.25 per voter in 1991 to $0.53 per voter in 1993. Modesto’s voter turnout jumped from 24.2% in 1991 to 44.4% in 1993.

In San Diego, which used voting by mail for a referendum in 1981, there was a 60% turnout, the highest on record for a special election. Although the city has not used the voting method since, a third of ballots cast in San Diego County are absentee.

A record number of California voters decided to vote absentee in November, 1994. More than 2 million people, about 23%, mailed in their ballots.