Each election demonstrates that Washington state needs to reform its slowboat system of counting votes. In a state that prides itself on advanced technology, the dawdling pace of elections decisions inevitably provokes a reasonable question: Isn’t there a better way to do this?
Internet voting is a long way down the road. Consider not just the electronic security challenges but the larger technical questions of potential crashes and how to manage the interaction of a central system with thousands of home computers.
But there are improvements that can be made quickly, some involving technological advancements. As Snohomish County Auditor Bob Terwilliger observes, states with punch ballots aren’t unique in using dated technology. The county’s current system, with voters drawing arrows to indicate their choices, uses technology that been around for decades. Federal legislation being developed in the House of Representatives will offer both financial help and a good framework for this state to make technological improvements on a voting system that is, in most other ways, well ahead of the nation.
Next year, the county will be one of a few sites for a limited demonstration project of electronic touch-screen voting. Voters who come into the Auditor’s Office to pick up absentee ballots will have the option of voting on a touch-screen there. Under legislation being proposed by Secretary of State Sam Reed, counties could set up extensive early-voting systems. If supervised kiosks of touch-screen terminals were placed in high-traffic locations, such as shopping malls, people would have the opportunity to vote at their convenience. And the ballot results would be available on election day, without the delays that can occur on mailed absentee ballots.
As Terwilliger observes, however, "The election system should be for the benefit of the voter." And large numbers of voters love mail-in ballots. Voting by mail can be made more compatible with obtaining results promptly. This year, the process of counting votes was helped along by a new state law requiring that absentee ballots be tabulated at least every third working day. The state could also impose a slightly earlier deadline for postmarking absentee ballots — they now can be mailed on election day — or, more drastically, we could follow other states in requiring the ballots be received by election day.
Neither step is practical at the moment. That’s because of the state’s ridiculously late September primaries. As it is, county auditors’ offices can barely take the primary ballots and send out general election ballots. Worse, the September date just begs for a meltdown where a close statewide primary election and a recount process combine to throw preparations for the November voting completely off track.
Washington’s Legislature has considered bills to move the primary to June or August. Either date could work. But legislators have been frozen, in part because they fear that, under campaign finance laws which prohibit lawmakers from fund-raising during a legislative session, an earlier primary would give their challengers an advantage.
So, an easy change in election laws is being held up by the interests of incumbents. As a result, Washington voters, candidates and, yes, the press wait for election results that are delivered with horse-and-buggy speed. In a Legislature where paralysis threatens to become a way of life, this is little surprise. But paralysis must give way to reasoned action. That’s not too much to ask in a state which supplies the world with software and jet airliners.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
