California Adopts Vote-by-Mail System for All Future Elections

California voters will continue to automatically receive ballots in the mail in all future state and local elections, under a bill signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday.

After experimenting with a universal vote-by-mail system during the coronavirus pandemic — resulting in near-record high turnout — California will now become the eighth state in the U.S. to make the change permanent.

“As states across our country continue to enact undemocratic voter suppression laws, California is increasing voter access, expanding voting options and bolstering elections' integrity and transparency,” said Newsom in a statement announcing his intention to sign Assembly Bill 37.

The move was applauded by voting rights advocates who credit the system with simplifying the voting process for Californians. Ballots are mailed out a month before elections and can be returned to county drop boxes, to voting sites or through the Postal Service, at no charge.

A study released by the Public Policy Institute of California, or PPIC, earlier this year found that mailing voters a ballot by default was the most effective prescription for boosting voter participation.

"The larger turnout that we saw in the recall election, the general election for 2020 that was the greatest [turnout] we had since Harry Truman was president — these are good things," Assemblymember Marc Berman, D-Menlo Park, who wrote the law, told KQED.

"I don't care who you vote for, I just want you to vote," Berman added. "And mailing a ballot to everybody makes it easier for them to vote and that's something that's good for California."

Universal mail-in voting, however, is not a permanent cure for voter apathy, as evidenced by a handful of special legislative elections this year in which fewer than a third of registered voters cast ballots, despite everybody receiving one.

But in this month's recall election, millions of ballots were cast before Election Day, helping push voter turnout to 57%, higher than some regularly scheduled gubernatorial votes in the past.

"Vote-by-mail has significantly increased participation of eligible voters," said Secretary of State Shirley Weber, in a statement. "Voters like having options for returning their ballot whether by mail, at a secure drop box, a voting center or at a traditional polling station."

Sending every voter a ballot with prepaid postage also has driven up the cost of elections in the state. The recent recall vote cost at least $276 million, according to estimates compiled by the state Department of Finance. And counties likely will need financial assistance from the state to cover the cost of future all-mail elections.

Staff for the state Assembly Appropriations Committee estimated that the new law will result in counties mailing ballots to 2.3 million additional registered voters — those who had not previously opted to vote by mail — at an additional cost of $4 million for printing and mailing.

In future elections, voters will still be able to cast ballots in person, even as an increasing number of Californians prefer to fill out their ballots at home — an option available to all voters in the state since 1979.

A decade ago, a majority of voters still cast their ballots at traditional polling places. The shift to vote by mail has accelerated since then, particularly in the last five years, when more than a dozen counties began sending ballots to voters by default, under the 2016 Voter’s Choice Act.