Legislators tackle election reform in wake of governor's race

By RACHEL LA CORTE
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER   16 January 2005

OLYMPIA, Wash. Florida's off the hook. Washington State is now under the election reform microscope.

After a governor's race that dragged on for eight weeks and three counts, some Evergreen State lawmakers hope to ensure voters won't have to wait months after future elections to learn who's leading their state.

"This is the issue of the year," said Sen. Jim Kastama, D-Puyallup and chair of the Senate Government Operations and Elections Committee, which holds a public hearing on the issue Monday. "People expect action."

The issue of reform has jumped quickly to the forefront after Democrat Christine Gregoire won the Gov.'s Mansion by 129 votes after a hand recount of nearly 2.9 million ballots.

Supporters of Republican opponent Dino Rossi have gone to court seeking to void the results, alleging widespread problems and voting irregularities. Among their gripes: hundreds of provisional ballots that were counted in King County without checking that the voter was registered, and the county's inability to produce a list of people who voted that matches the number of votes cast.

  
 
Thus far, none of the bills filed directly address the problems in last year's election.

"At this point it would be good to do a lot of listening," Kastama said. "If we're going to fix it, let's fix it right and let's take our time."

In her inauguration speech last week, Gov. Christine Gregoire announced that she will create a task force to review the election process and to report recommendations to her and the Legislature by March 1.

Secretary of State Sam Reed, who has been criticized by fellow Republicans for certifying the results, has unveiled a package that he wants lawmakers to support. His proposals include moving the September primary to the third Tuesday in June and requiring absentee ballots to be postmarked by the Friday before the election or received before the polls close on Election Day.

Lawmakers agree that election reform needs to be a bipartisan issue.

State Rep. Toby Nixon, the ranking Republican on the House's state government committee, said voters want a uniform system that reduces errors exposed during the gubernatorial election.

"If they believe the election system is flawed ... then they're not going to trust any branch of government, be it the executive, legislative or judicial, to govern," said Nixon, R-Kirkland. "That means no matter what brilliant ideas we come up with, people just aren't going to support us in that because they don't believe we're here legitimately."

In committee meetings in the coming weeks, legislators will be looking at several bills that have been proposed.

Sen. Pam Roach, R-Sumner, has introduced several bills dealing with voter eligibility. Roach, the ranking Republican on Kastama's Senate committee, said there were too many questions over whether people voting by provisional ballot were actually eligible voters.

Roach has introduced several bills on the issue, including:

-Senate Bill 5080, to make voters affirm citizenship before voting by provisional ballot.

-Senate bill 5078, requiring all voters who registered to vote before July 1, 2005 to reregister in order to clean up the voter rolls.

"We have had an open door and we need to make sure for the confidence of the voters, that we close those doors," Roach said.

Roach has also introduced Senate Bill 5082, requiring absentee ballots to reach county auditors by Election Day, the standard used in Oregon, where all elections are conducted entirely by mail.

In Washington, absentee ballots count as long as they're postmarked by Election Day. As absentee voting has become more popular in recent years, that standard has left the result of dozens of races unknown for days or weeks after Election Day.

Todd Donovan, a political scientist at Western Washington University in Bellingham, said he's happy that lawmakers are looking at election reform, but said most of the administrative fixes being offered up wouldn't have made a difference in the governor's race.

"It was not a fatally flawed election, it was a close election," he said.

Lance LeLoup, professor of political science at Washington State University, agrees.

"There's no reforms that would make any difference when you have an election this close," he said. "The margin of victory here is a 500-year flood."

But Sen. Jean Berkey, D-Everett and vice chair on the Senate's elections committee, said that an overhaul of the election system is "just good government."

"I hope with all my heart that people really are concerned now about voting and having that important role in our government," Berkey said. "They're finding out that 129 votes really does make a difference."