A pitch to switch to all-mail elections was rejected by Snohomish County Council Republicans on Monday, but Democrats vowed to revisit the issue in January when they are in the majority.
In a 3-2 vote, County Councilmen Gary Nelson, John Koster and Jeff Sax endorsed the county’s current election system of offering electronic voting machines at polling places and absentee ballots by mail.
Democrat County Executive Aaron Reardon and Auditor Bob Terwilliger proposed switching to all-mail elections, citing the $1 million cost of audit devices the state requires for electronic voting machines.
| By the numbers
76: percent of Snohomish county voters who cast absentee ballots in the November election. 39: percent of voters who are not registered absentee. $1 million: Cost for audit machines. $686,000: Additional cost for system with polls and absentee ballots. |
On Monday, politicians hotly debated the validity of the county’s election system.
“The executive and the county auditor are opposed to freedom of choice,” Nelson said. “It’s still clear in my mind that it’s not the poll voters, it is the mail-in ballots that are causing major problems.”
GOP members of the council forced a vote on the proposed all-mail legislation during their morning meeting, yanking it from Democrat Dave Gossett’s afternoon operations committee.
“I’m not willing to disenfranchise 40 percent of the voters,” Koster said. Voting is a precious right and mail-in ballots should be the exception, not the rule, he said.
The trend is going the other way, however.
Thirty-two of the state’s 39 counties have switched to all-mail elections since the state Legislature relaxed rules this spring.
Nelson criticized mail voting as a source of fraud. He said 1,779 mail ballots were rejected during the general election.
A report shows that of those ballots, 1,176 were rejected because they were postmarked too late.
“You have no idea who made out the ballot,” Nelson said.
“You do know who signed the ballot,” Gossett countered. To prevent fraud, county staff compare absentee ballot signatures against computer records.
Gossett said that if mail voting was a serious problem, then Nelson should propose eliminating it outright.
Democratic Councilman Kirke Sievers said a majority of voters like the system.
“If there are a number of people who have great fear … there would be a mass of people changing from mail voting to the polls,” Sievers said. “Fundamentally, I think they like that ballot coming to their house.”
In two weeks, Dave Somers joins the County Council, and the majority shifts to Democrats. Somers said he supports switching to all-mail elections.
Gossett and county executive director Tom Fitzpatrick said the debate will be revisited then.
“I intend to come back after the first of the year,” Gossett said.
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