Washington state currently lets each county decide whether to use all-mail ballots, or whether to maintain old-fashioned polling places. However, every county in the state except Pierce County now uses only mail ballots. On February 15, the Washington House passed Second Substitute HB 1572, which eliminates county choice, and forces all counties to use only mail ballots. The bill now goes to the Senate.
Oregon survives ONLY with mail ballots.
Less public infections (at old polling places) — swine flu, etc. ???
Internet voting coming soon — to even put the Postal Snail out of business for voting stuff ???
having mail ballets in Washington state is excellent.
The bill had passed the House in 2009 on a 54:43 vote, but the Senate Rules Committee had referred it back to the House Rules Committee. This time the House vote was 57:41.
The opposition appears to be mainly about a concern about forcing Pierce County to switch, when the other 38 counties had the option. The Pierce County auditor (who conducts elections) as well as the Pierce County executive (who was auditor until 2009) are in favor of going to an mail-only voting, but the county council is opposed. The county option is exercised by the auditor with approval by county council. I vaguely sense that there is now a sense of wanting to keep Pierce County unique. So even if they really wanted to switch, they wouldn’t because they wanted to prove they were making a choice, instead of going along with everyone else.
Eliminating in-person voting allowed the state to rip out all the dual procedures for conducting elections. The bill modifies over 100 sections of the election law and runs for 77 pages, and was the main reason that the bill was proposed.
In 2008, turnout among mail voters in Pierce County was 88% vs. 56% for poll voters, who represented 15% of those who voted. For local elections, poll voters usually represent single digit numbers.
The history of mail voting in Washington was included in the bill analysis:
1915: Absentee voting created.
1933: 65+ and disabled permitted to vote by mail.
1967: Mail-only precincts for less than 100 voters.
1974: Mail-voting by request (no reason required).
1993: Persistent by-mail voting permitted.
2005: County option to go to mail-only voting.
I like giving the people a universal option to vote by mail. Among other possible advantages for both voters and election officials, it is convenient, and could avoid any problems of how much to count of someone’s vote if they go to the wrong polling place.
But it suddenly occurs to me that by-mail-*only* voting might pose some issues of transparency in vote-counting procedures.
Do election workers in Washington State hold all the ballots until Election Day and run them through tabulators then? Or do they process ballots as they come in?
100% mail voting is a good idea. It allows for sytematic, organized electoral fraud that can guarantee dominant political machines the chance for undetectabale, unfettered control of electoral outcomes for generations at a time.
Eventually we should become even more efficient, save postage and do the same thing with electronic balloting, or just avoid all the hassels and allow the state to declare the winners based on aggregate psychic sampling of the of the voting public.
While I favor people taking more time to vote, I do miss going to the polling station and interacting with the poll workers and other voters.
@5: I think Isaac Asimov already wrote about that:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franchise_%28short_story%29
OTOH, I believe he intended that piece as fiction.