Washington state and the nation are inviting further embarrassments if we continue to ignore our vote-counting problems.
As a Herald news report documented Monday, this state barely skated past Florida-style uncertainty in this year’s U.S. Senate race. A computer analysis by the paper suggested that vote-counting problems may have given Democrat Maria Cantwell nearly a third of her 2,229-vote margin of victory over Republican Slade Gorton.
Yes, the problem in this state is with punch-card voting, just like that used in Palm Beach County. One big difference here, though, is that the outmoded voting technology is prevalent in Republican counties rather than Democratic areas.
Unfortunately, with the election now fading from view, we may settle back into election business as usual. Incoming Secretary of State Sam Reed told The Herald that there’s no need for the state Legislature to force counties to update their voting systems.
Get that man a cup of coffee. He needs to clear his head before he takes office.
As Monday’s report showed, 16 counties in this state, including Island County, use some type of punch-card system even though it has been well known for years that the counting is less reliable. Much of the blame for the use of punch cards goes to the counties’ budget pressures. Rural and less prosperous counties have tended to hang onto punch-card systems while Snohomish and other counties have generally adopted optical scanning technology.
In 1988, the old National Bureau of Standards issued a report urging an end to the use of prescored punch-card ballots, the type still found in 14 of our counties. This state isn’t alone in its neglect of the problem. Nationally, 31 percent of all counties reportedly still use punch-card systems.
It wouldn’t make sense for the federal government to dictate to states how to conduct voting. The Constitution requires state control. Still, Congress should find out how much money is needed to update voting systems and put up a significant share of the funds for interested states and counties to make updates.
In this state, there’s no reason for the Legislature to be content with leaving voting-technology decisions to the counties. State Rep. Doug Ericksen has called for legislation to require counties to replace punch-card systems. The Bellingham Republican believes that implementing his plan over several years would help restore voter confidence. He’s in a position to know about the value of accuracy. He won election by 108 votes in a 1998 recount.
Legislators may not want to push new expenses onto counties without giving them some lead time. And the state’s budget won’t allow much in the way of help this year. But by demanding an end to punch-card voting over four or six years, the state could extend some financial help, give counties adequate planning time and allow for help from the federal government.
It is the entire state’s business to ensure that elections are conducted accurately and fairly. All votes should count equally. The less-prosperous, Republican-oriented areas of Washington deserve equal consideration at the polls.
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