Make Washington ballots due by Election Day

WASHINGTON voters are no strangers to suspenseful elections — but our state has a habit of dragging the suspense out for way too long.

Secretary of State Sam Reed wants to bring elections to more decisive ends sooner. His proposal would require ballots be received in election offices by Election Day. Now, the ballots need only be postmarked by Election Day. That means ballots straggle in throughout election week, often putting off the decisive conclusion for days — given Washington's propensity for razor-thin margins.

On Election Night in November, Democratic challenger Darcy Burner was leading in her bid to unseat incumbent Republican Dave Reichert for the 8th Congressional District seat. But Reichert pulled comfortably ahead over several King County and Pierce County ballot counts by Friday to win re-election.

With 38 of 39 counties now conducting mail elections, the problem of interminable elections has grown only worse. Reed's proposal follows the lead of Oregon, a veteran vote-by-mail state that requires ballots in by Election Day. The change would not disenfranchise voters who, Reed argues, would quickly adapt.

In the past election in Oregon's populous Multnomah County, with 427,000 registered voters, only 136 ballots could not be counted because they arrived too late.

In Washington's similar-sized Snohomish County, with 373,000 registered voters, 672 ballots arrived too late to be counted.

Reed's proposal also would speed up ballot counting, permitting election workers to begin processing ballots on the day before the election. Now, that can't start until Election Day. The actual results would not be tabulated and released until after 8 p.m. on Election Day.

The embrace of mail voting by state voters and election officials has put Washington's Election Day postmark requirement seriously out of date. Reed's proposed changes, embedded in House Bill 1623 and Senate Bill 5631, are overdue.