House overwhelmingly votes to pass final election reform bills

04/22/2005

By RACHEL LA CORTE  / Associated Press

The House overwhelming voted Friday to pass the two major bills of an election reform package, which had been held up by a battle over how voters should identify themselves at the polls.

On a 97-1 vote, the House passed the measures to create statewide voting standards and enhance voter registration record-keeping. The bills must now be approved by the Senate, which was expected to vote late Friday. Gov. Christine Gregoire has said she would sign the bills.

"A lot of good things are included" in these bills, said Rep. Toby Nixon, R-Kirkland, the ranking Republican on the House State Government, Operations & Accountability Committee. "We don't yet agree that the ID requirement at the polls is strong enough and we will continue to work on that."

Nixon called the measures "an improvement on current law."

Secretary of State Sam Reed, who headed up an election reform task force this year and suggested much of the content of the bills, said he was "delighted and relieved" that the two houses finally reached agreement.

"It really does cover most of the issues that we felt were imperative for election reform," Reed said.

The vote came after election reform leaders in the House and Senate worked out their main differences during a conference committee meeting Thursday night.

Republicans wanted voters to be required to show government-issued photo ID. Senate Democrats wanted to require either photo ID or a voter registration card. The House amended that language last week, allowing a utility bill or bank statement to be used.

The House also allowed the option of letting voters without ID verbally state their name, year of birth and a unique identifier assigned by the secretary of state, something not supported by either Republicans or Democrats in the Senate.

At Thursday night's meeting, the four Democrats and two Republicans agreed to allow the House version of the bill, minus the verbal identification allowance.

"I feel like I'm floating about two feet above the ground," said Rep. Kathy Haigh, D-Shelton, chairwoman of the House State Government, Operations & Accountability Committee. "To have the support of the Republicans is just unbelievable. We really worked hard."

The two bills would also streamline voter databases, allowing the secretary of state to screen for felons, those who have declined to serve on juries because they are not U.S. citizens, or have been found legally incompetent to vote. The bills also require mail and absentee ballots to be visually distinguishable from other ballots, and make voting more than once a felony.

The changes will take place this summer, 90 days after the legislative session is scheduled to end on Sunday.

Lawmakers still held out slim hope for resurrecting a bill to move the primary election to August from September. County auditors say that is necessary to give them more time to get absentee ballots to military and overseas voters and to get ready for the general election.

That bill never came up for a vote and missed a cutoff deadline last week when Republicans locked up their vote because they weren't happy with the other election bills.

The bills were among several introduced after the governor's race that saw Democrat Gregoire win by 129 votes after a hand recount of nearly 2.9 million ballots.

Supporters of her Republican opponent, Dino Rossi, have gone to court seeking to void the results, alleging widespread problems and voting irregularities, including illegal votes by felons and dead people. A trial in that case begins May 23 in Wenatchee.

Other election reform bills awaiting the governor's signature include: a bill requiring a paper trail for all electronic voting machines; a bill requiring the secretary of state to review county election procedures every three years and to provide a manual of election laws and rules to all counties; and a bill that requires out-of-state, overseas and military service voters to be told of rights and procedures. Gregoire is expected to sign all of them.

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The omnibus election reform bill is Senate Bill 5499, the voter registration record-keeping bill is Senate Bill 5743, the paper trail bill is Senate Bill 5395, the all-mail voting bill is House Bill 1754, the out-of-state voters' information bill is Senate Bill 5565 and the election law manual bill is Senate Bill 5564. The county review bill is House Bill 1749.

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On the Net:

Legislature: http://www.leg.wa.gov

Gov.: http://www.governor.wa.gov