One stamp is enough for ballots

Save a stamp. Use a drop box.

That’s the advice of Lane County Elections Clerk Cheryl Betschart.

“We’re really encouraging people to use the drop boxes,” Betschart said of the 23 drop-box sites throughout the county.

That way, voter, you don’t even need a stamp for your mail-in ballot for the May 18 primary election.

But, if you must mail it in, one 44-cent first-class stamp is all you need, even if your ballot is filled with every piece of paper that it arrived with in the mail and weighs more than 1 ounce.

A ballot that includes everything, main envelope, secrecy envelope, ballot and precinct committee people ballot, weighs in at 1.2 ounces, which would normally require 61 cents in postage. Remove the secrecy ballot and that takes it down to an ounce, which requires one 44-cent stamp.

But for the third straight year, the U.S. Postal Service will still deliver your ballot with a single 44 cent stamp regardless of the weight. The county will once again make up the difference in cost, Betschart said.

“Anybody who puts a first class stamp on it, it will get delivered,” Betschart said.

In nonpresidential elections, more than 70 percent of Lane County voters typically use drop boxes, she said.

At least the cost of a first-class stamp has not gone up this year right before the election, as it in May the past two years.

On May 12, 2008, eight days before the Oregon primary election, the price of a first-class postage stamp increased from 41 cents to 42 cents.

That not only caused concerns about ballots being mailed with 41-cent stamps on or after May 12, but the ballots that year were particularly hefty with federal, state, county and city elections in a presidential election year.

Yet, officials assured voters that their ballots would be delivered, no matter the weight, with a 41-cent stamp.

Last year, the price of a first-class stamp increased to 44 cents from 42 cents on May 11, eight days before a special district election. Once again, the county assured voters that their ballots would be delivered regardless with a single stamp. And the same is true this year.

“There’s no problem with delivery,” Betschart said. “All the post offices are aware.”

As of Tuesday morning, the Elections Office had received more than 9,500 ballots. All ballots must be received by 8 p.m. on May 18.