Mail ballots have become the overwhelming choice for primary voting in Orange County, with the trend hitting a high Tuesday of 73 percent of all ballots cast.

In the 2012 primary, 66 percent of voters cast mail ballots; in 2010, it was 61 percent.

County Registrar of Voters Neal Kelley noted the trend is occurring statewide. He suspects that amid the busyness of people’s lives, they are finding mail voting one more way to use their time more efficiently.

Kelley does not advocate for how voters should cast their ballots. But I asked how much money could be saved by going to an all-mail primary election and he said the estimated $3.6 million cost of Tuesday’s election would be reduced to about $2.8 million.

The state Legislature would have to first approve such a change, and the issue is on its radar. Legislators have already approved a pilot project in Yolo County, which can conduct local elections – but not state and federal races – entirely by mail.

The Legislature has slowly but surely made it easier to vote by mail. Until 1978, you needed an excuse to vote by what were then called absentee ballots – such as being an invalid or being out of town.

That year, the law changed so that you could request a one-time mail ballot without needing a reason. Use of the absentee ballots grew from 3 percent in 1980 to 28 percent in 2002. That year, the Legislature removed the requirement to have an excuse to be a permanent mail voter, meaning anyone could request to be automatically sent mail ballots each election.

ORLY’S POPULARITY

Orly Taitz’s ability to grab headlines with lawsuits against President Barack Obamahas faded – and so has her ability to win votes as a candidate for statewide office.

Nonetheless, her third statewide election bid found 98,010 voters who thought she’d be the best of seven candidates to be state attorney general, according to tallies as of Friday. That was good enough for 3 percent of the vote and sixth place. IncumbentKamala Harris led the pack with 53 percent and is cruising toward re-election in November.

Taitz, a Laguna Niguel attorney and dentist, began attracting national attention in 2009 for lawsuits alleging that Obama was born in Kenya and ineligible to be president. Lately, she’s focused on lawsuits alleging Obama uses a fake Social Security number.

And every now and then, she comes up with something new but equally novel.

On Thursday, she posted a letter on her website that she said she sent to Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, with a proposal she said was inspired by Obama’s swap of five Guantanamo detainees for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.

“I would like to offer you a trade of 12 million (by some accounts as many as 42 million) illegal Mexicans residing in the U.S. for one U.S. Marine,” Taitz wrote.

That Marine is Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi, who says he accidentally crossed into Mexico around on March 31 with three loaded firearms and 400 rounds of ammunition while on his way to meet friends in San Ysidro. He has been held in a Tijuana jail since then on charges of illegally bringing firearms in the country.

Taitz received 508,455 votes – 25.6 percent of the GOP primary tally – when she ran in a two-person field for secretary of state in 2010. Her count dropped to 154,781 – 3 percent – in a field of 14 for U.S. senator in 2012.

Contact the writer: mwisckol@ocregister.com