Arcadia Voter Turn-out Low? – Don’t worry, there’s a stamp for that

By Terry Miller
In Arcadia one candidate, for whom we have considerable respect, felt he had to do something to get people out to vote in what has historically been a very low turnout for municipal elections.
In doing so, a police investigation ensued when some residents said they were concerned that Sho Tay was paying for stamps and collecting election ballots for the April 8 council election.
We broke the story in our March 20 edition.
The attempt to collect mail-in ballots for the upcoming April 8 election in Arcadia was by a young man identified only as an Asian teenager approximately 16 years of age. He was knocking on doors in the 1700 block of Alta Oaks and asking residents if he could collect their election ballots and mail them for them.
Arcadia Weekly spoke with candidate for council, Sho Tay on the Wednesday following that incident.
ShoTay told Arcadia Weekly that 2 years ago voter turnout was so low that he wanted to encourage people to vote in this election for a better balance. “After some suggestion from my campaign staff , I enlisted the help of students from the Democratic Club at Arcadia High School to offer residents of Arcadia stamps for the mail in postcard. It was all quite innocent and done with the best of intentions.”
“We (the campaign staff) did a survey and found out that many people didn’t even know how many (stamps) to put on a ballot postcard, so we offered to help.” He asserted, “…it was certainly not an attempt to sway the voter in either direction.”
The candidate’s intentions, while honorable in objective, caught the attention of local residents and law enforcement when one of the students offered to mail the ballots for the resident.
“It’s about people (the election) not the party…I’m a registered Republican,” Sho Tay said in a telephone interview. “We were simply trying to encourage those who might not send in their ballots, to do just that!”
We asked Sho Tay if anyone took the students up on the offer of stamps or the offer to mail the ballots for them. His answer was in the affirmative “Yes, some Arcadians did take stamps and we took (3) ballots to the post office.”
Sho Tay, at that time said he stopped the practice and will not offer to mail in ballots for residents, nor offer stamps.
However, on Tuesday evening we received an email from Shoy Tay saying he was, once again giving away stamps this week. We were surprised – to say the least – that Sho Tay, was once again offering to pay for postage of the ballots and opening himself up to more condemnation.
“So far about 3,600 ballots have been cast, out of about 30,000 registered voters. That is only 12%. I believe the more voters, the more voices are heard. Since the beginning of my campaign I have been making every effort to get more registered voters to participate in this election. No matter who you vote for, it’s important to cast your vote. Some people say the new mail-in ballot process couldn’t be easier — all you have to do is put your ballot in an envelope, put a stamp on it, and put it in your mailbox by this Friday, April 4, or hand deliver it to City Hall by next Tuesday, April 8.
I’m going to make it even easier – today I delivered first class stamps to two local businesses to give away to anyone who comes in and requests one for their ballot envelope. No one will ask which candidate you are voting for; no one will even check to make sure you use the stamp for your ballot envelope. It’s the honor system.” –Sho Tay

We looked on the calendar when we first received the email: April 1… so we checked one of the two businesses where Sho Tay said he left stamps for anyone to use and they confirmed they did have free stamps for voters, courtesy of Sho Tay.
Elections are rarely without controversy. This year is no exception.

Photo Illustration

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