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Vote now? Vote later? Just vote Mail Tribune / Jim Craven The Medford post office began processing mail ballots Friday for delivery beginning throughout Jackson County this weekend. Here, postal worker Bill Maxwell takes a batch of ballots headed for Talent out of the sorting machine. By Bill Varble "Vote early," goes an old saying, "and often." The joke is about precincts where the minions of corrupt political machines were paid to cast multiple votes. Experts like Jackson County Clerk Kathy Beckett say voting early � if not often � is a good way to vote in Oregon this fall, too. "Get it over with," she says. "If you lay the ballot aside you might forget it. "People lose them or throw them away, or the dog or the cat get hold of it." Nearly 107,000 ballots were mailed Friday to Jackson County voters in what will be Oregon�s � and the nation�s � first vote-by-mail election for president. Beckett says she�s not trying to rush people into making any decisions they�re not sure about. "Obviously we want them to be comfortable," she says. Although the League of Women Voters makes no official recommendation, Rogue Valley League President Jean Milgram agrees it�s a good idea to vote early. "If they�re undecided, they may want to wait because something may happen," she says. "But we tell people if they know how they�re voting, do it early." Voters should receive two ballots in the mail this week. One ballot will have the presidential race and other candidates and local measures. The other will have statewide measures. Voters should mark both sides of both pages with a pencil and return both in the envelope provided, Beckett says. If a voter leaves one ballot out, he won�t be issued another ballot. "There are no second chances," she says. Lost ballots can be replaced, but voters must go to the County Clerk�s Office in Medford to get a replacement. If voters make a mistake marking their ballots, they can erase and make corrections. Beckett says she�ll have the help of about 125 temporary workers when processing of ballots begins about five days before the Nov. 7 election deadline. Another reason to vote early is to spare yourself all those election-related phone calls. During the two-week vote-by-mail period, campaigns can go to the clerk�s office or have e-mailed to them at little cost lists of voters who have and haven�t voted (the lists, of course, don�t say how people vote). Campaign calling banks then call those who haven�t voted. "As soon as those ballots drop, the phone calls are going to start," says Democratic legislative candidate Lon Holston. "It�s going to be relentless. "I would drive that ballot down to the County Clerk�s Office, run it down, whatever it takes." Voter Ed Alexander, of Ashland, says it�s OK to take your time. There�s no way voters can vote on everything the day the ballot comes if they haven�t done some homework. Alexander says he and his wife, Maxine, spent two days staking down their votes on all the candidates and measures. "We�ve gone down the list," he says. "It won�t take us long when the ballots come. We�re ready to go." As if it weren�t complicated enough for voters facing two ballots and 26 statewide measures � including some with fairly ambiguous language � there are a couple of added caveats. The first is about that blue insert that has the text for all the state measures. It�s to be read and thrown away. "We don�t want it back," Beckett says. "If they put it in the envelope, it�ll cost 55 cents to mail their ballots." The second has to do with a glitch in the ballot for the county�s proposed new juvenile center. Due to an error in preparing ballots, the juvenile bond measure was left off ballots mailed to about 21,000 voters. Those voters will receive a supplemental ballot later this week that will have only that $16.5 million bond measure. The ballot can be included with the others, or returned separately. The clerk�s office will make sure it gets counted either way. At least one backer of the juvenile measure, which has failed twice before, says supporters could be forgiven for wondering if the measure is under a curse. Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.