(cross-posted from ATM Watch)

During Courage Campaign’s recent conference call with Debra Bowen, the Secretary of State expressed interest in expanding the number of permanent absentee voters as a means to mitigate the expected lower turnout of our June statewide primary election next year.

There's a big concern with this Feb 5 primary that we're going to see a big drop off in June. I'd like to see the state undertake a real effort to get voters who want to do so to sign up as permanent absentee voters…permanent vote by mail voters. That will mean that they will automatically get ballots for the June and November elections once they register for the February primary. We know that that system increases turnout among occasional voters and among minority voters. Some counties promote that very heavily, others don't. It's very important in a year where we could have wildly swinging turnout because of having three elections, that we take advantage of those kinds of tools.

In last year's November election, according to Capitol Weekly, absentee ballots accounted for 45% of all votes cast throughout the state, a percentage that is expected to rise to 50% in 2008. If Secretary Bowen has her way, that number could be far higher.

So what does this mean for the February 2008 primary?

Well, by California law, absentee voters can send in their ballots almost a month prior to election day. Next year, that magic date is January 7, weeks before either New Hampshire or Iowa voters will have gone to the polls.

Capitol Weekly cites another pertinent statistic:

40 percent of California's absentee voters typically cast ballots prior to a week before Election Day

If this holds true and absentee ballots do end up accounting for half of the votes cast, that could mean at least 20% of all voters in California will have voted before the results from Iowa and New Hampshire are known. In other words, considering the growing number of absentee voters in the state, a February 5 primary could actually mean that Iowa and New Hampshire have less impact on the outcome of California's election, not more as some have argued.

Traditionally, of course, the results in the early states tend to be momentum-generating, think of John Kerry after his Iowa win in 2004 or George W. Bush after South Carolina in 2000. Next year, there just may be a good number of California voters whose choice will be untainted by those that came before, a number, which actually could exceed the voting populations of New Hampshire and Iowa combined.