For release… 5:30AM… Monday, Nov. 2, 2009

 Contacts: Peter Woolley 973.670.3239

Some Garden Staters Vote by Mail

Easier N.J. state regulations on voting by mail, as well as campaigns that have blanketed some areas with vote-by-mail applications, have made a small difference in the way some Garden Staters vote -- but perhaps enough to affect any race that is close.  According to results from the most recent FDU PublicMind^TM poll, 9 in 10 (89%) likely voters reported in the week before the election that they were not very likely or not at all likely to vote by mail this year and would show up in person.  But 2% reported they already voted by mail, and another 6% said they were very likely to do the civic deed by mail.  Unlike the old absentee ballots, the new mail-in ballots don’t require the voter to give a reason.

Voters under 30 years of age were more likely than older voters to say they were somewhat or very likely to vote by mail. But while 3% of voters over 30 reported they had already voted by mail, none of those under 30 reported they had already voted by mail.

“In a close race, even a small percentage of mail-in ballots can make a big difference,” said Peter Woolley, a political scientist.  In the poll, those who reported they had already voted were running almost 2 to 1 in favor of Jon Corzine over Chris Christie, but Woolley said this subset of voters was too small on which to base a confident conclusion.

“Voting by mail has been a big hit in some states with large rural areas,” said Woolley. “But here in New Jersey, the concern will be whether the mail-in ballot helps democracy by helping more people to vote, or hurts it by helping a few people to vote too much.”

The Fairleigh Dickinson University poll of 694 likely voters statewide was conducted by telephone from Oct. 22, 2009, through Oct. 28, 2009, and has a margin of error of +/- 4 percentage points.

# # #