Election proposals swamp legislators

 

BRAD SHANNON

THE OLYMPIAN   31 January 2005

State legislators, cracking their knuckles over when to have the state's primary election, say they still haven't agreed on a solution: whether it's May, June, August or early September.
 
The move is aimed at giving county elections officials time between the primary and general elections to send absentee ballots to military and overseas voters and receive them in time in the event of a recount.

But as lawmakers wrestle with that and a dozen other proposals for making Washington's election system less sloppy and more reliable, the idea of converting to a statewide system of voting by mail also has come up.

The two ideas statewide vote by mail and an earlier primary could end up complementing each other, according to state Rep. Kathy Haigh, D-Shelton, who is chairwoman of the House State Government Operations and Accountability Committee.

Having an all-mail ballot at the time the state moves its primary could help ensure that voters are informed of the new election date, Haigh said.

"I am in support of that (statewide vote by mail), at least in the primary," Haigh said last week after a series of hearings in both Senate and House committees on election-related bills.

"We're going to have a battle on just changing the primary date."

Haigh is in favor of moving the primary to the first Tuesday of September, a week to 10 days earlier than the current date. But other ideas are in the works.

Rep. Toby Nixon, R-Kirkland, and the ranking minority member of Haigh's state government committee, said he's intrigued by having an election in early September, but on a Saturday, to avoid conflicts that Haigh's proposal might cause by its occurrence on or near the first day of school each year.

He agreed that a vote-by-mail system would lessen some of those effects while also eliminating a lot of problems related to the use of electronic voting machines.

Easing the transition

If anything is certain, it's that nothing is certain yet. But among the options, vote by mail is seen by many as a potential way of easing the public into a new election date.

"I'm open-minded to that, particularly in the primary," House Speaker Frank Chopp, D-Seattle, said last week in a meeting with reporters. But he added a touch of caution, saying: "We have to keep in mind that people here have a tradition of going to the polls."

Republican Secretary of State Sam Reed has said for a long time that he believes in honoring the wishes of both poll-site and by-mail voters. But he does want to give individual counties more power to decide whether they want to run strictly vote-by-mail elections.

Several counties, by Reed's count, already have done it, including Skamania, Ferry, Okanogan and Clallam. Whatcom County also has voted to do it.

And Mason County Auditor Al Brotche, whose voters endorsed the idea last fall, has announced that his county plans to go all-mail possibly in time for this fall's elections. Details are in the works.

Sen. Jim Kastama, D-Puyallup, predicted that lawmakers likely will give counties a local option that makes it easier to convert to all-mail, rather than push the state into mandatory mail-in ballots. Even so, he plans a full presentation on Oregon's statewide vote-by-mail approach in another two weeks.

Rolling out proposals

All-mail voting and moving the primary are only two of several dozen so-called reforms in the works that could change the way Washingtonians vote. Most proposals are spurred by recent problems in the governor's election, in which Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire won by 129 votes over Republican Dino Rossi, and Rossi is crying foul.

Sen. Kastama said he expects to start bringing measures up for a vote in mid-February, and Rep. Nixon said his Republican caucus hopes to roll out its proposals at about the same time.

Election legislation

Bills under consideration:

- Election reviews: Senate Bill 5499 drew favorable comment from county elections officials last week. It changes election procedures to require state reviews or audits of county practices on a rotating basis, and it clarifies what canvassing boards can do with ballots. Secretary of State Sam Reed said he favors the reviews and standardizing provisions.

- Nonpartisan secretary of state: Less clearly popular, but supported by a few legislators, is a move to make Reed's position nonpartisan. Reed, who has been criticized by fellow Republicans for not fighting harder for Rossi in the handling of ballots, calls Senate Bill 5122 "a problem in search of a solution."

- Ballot paper trail: Senate Bill 5395 (companion measure is House Bill 1105) addresses the need for a paper trail for elections. Reed says his office is dealing with the paper trail issue by administrative rule.

Activists such as John Gideon of the group Voters Unite have testified against allowing any alternative to a paper ballot, saying software systems can develop glitches or be manipulated. They say that despite Reed's assurances, they are afraid the administrative rule will leave open the option for a technological alternative to a voter-verified paper trail in the future.

Gideon said after one hearing last week that he was encouraged that lawmakers are taking the concern seriously. Nixon predicted that a bill would need a voter-verified paper ballot requirement to pass.