Reed, others form big plans

Joint effort under way for Election Day changes

By Brad Shannon | The Olympian • Published January 11, 2009

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More changes might be coming to the state's ever-evolving election system.

Secretary of State Sam Reed and state Rep. Sam Hunt, the Olympia Democrat who leads a key committee that handles elections issues, both have ideas. They would:

• Limit the party names that candidates can use when running for office under the top-two runoff primary system. Reed wants real party names such as Republican, Libertarian, Democratic or unaffiliated, spokesman David Ammons said. Hunt seeks the same.

• Require all 39 counties to have vote-by-mail elections, ending the use of poll sites. Only Pierce County is a holdout against mail-in elections now that King County is making the switch this year.

• Let military and overseas voters cast ballots online, picking up on an experiment that the Department of Defense began in 2004 and then let lapse. Hunt wants to consider Reed's concept; money could be a sticking point, Ammons said.

• Allow voter registrations closer to the date of the election. Sen. Joe McDermott, D-Seattle, prefers Election Day registration. Reed and county auditors favor in-person registration only as close as eight days before the election (it's 15 days now for in-person, and longer for online and mail-in).

Reed also favors moving the date for mail-in and online registrations to 29 days before an election. The deadline now is 31 days.

Other more controversial ideas could be on the table. Reed, a Republican, wants to set an Election Day deadline for ballots to be returned to elections officials. Ballots currently need a postmark no later than Election Day, which leaves some 50 percent of ballots uncounted as of election night, Ammons said.

"It's too long of a wait," Ammons said, describing the new deadline, similar to Oregon's, as "a huge change. … It's always been a hard sell in the Legislature. We're pushing again."

Hunt, who leads the House State Government and Elections Committee, dislikes the deadline.

"I think Election Day is Election Day. You ought to be able to vote on Election Day," then send in the ballot, he said.

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