ID to be required at the polls

Voters showing up at the polls for the Sept. 20 primary election will, for the first time, have to show identification or their vote may not count.

That change, one of several the Legislature approved this year in light of the razor-thin margin in the governor's race, was pointed out yesterday by Secretary of State Sam Reed.

"The rubber hits the road," said Reed, in detailing a series of changes that will take place this election year across the state.

Among the changes:

• Those who vote at polling places must show identification, either a driver's license, a voter-registration card, a utility bill or other documents that identify the voter. If they don't have ID, the ballot will be considered a provisional one, and elections workers will have to match signatures before it is counted.

"This extra step will protect legal voters and prevent fraud," Reed said.

• Enhancement of original ballots will be outlawed in the Sept. 20 primary. For example, if voters mistakenly circle each race instead of filling in the bubble on the ballot, election workers can't take those ballots and fill in the appropriate circles, as was done in the recent recount in the governor's race.

Instead, the ballot will be copied and the copy, assuming the voter intent can be determined, will be enhanced and votes counted, with the original ballot left unchanged. That way, the original ballot will be preserved in the case of a recount.

If a voter fills out the ballot correctly, but marks just one race incorrectly, the vote in that race won't count.

• Provisional and absentee ballots must be visually distinguishable from one another. Some provisional ballots may be thrown out because of problems with signatures. In most cases, provisional and absentee ballots will be different colors.

That should solve the recount problem that occurred when these ballots were mixed in with regular ballots and officials couldn't distinguish between them.

• All mailed-in ballots must be kept in a secure location before they are opened.

• Fixing a signature during a recount is prohibited. If officials determine the signature on the ballot doesn't match the one on file, the voter is notified before the election is certified and he can confirm the signature is his. That can't be done in a recount. In order for the ballot to be counted, the voter must fix the missing or mismatched signature either in person or by mail by the day before certification.

• As approved by the Legislature, the threshold for an automatic manual recount for a statewide election increases from 150 votes to 1,000 votes.

• All counties with a population of more than 75,000 must canvass ballots daily, including Saturdays. And all county recounts must be certified on the same day for races that cross county lines.

While the Legislature ordered many of the changes, some are required under the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA), passed after the 2000 presidential election. HAVA requires that all states have a statewide voter-registration database by next January.

Reed said Washington will likely miss that deadline but should have the database in place by early next year. Once it is in place, the state plans to update it monthly to avoid what happened in the last election, where dead voters' ballots were filled out in their names, Reed said.

Other changes require that felons, when they are released from custody, be given information about how to have their voting rights restored.

Reed said military and overseas absentee ballots have been mailed for the Sept. 20 election, and all the rest of the absentee ballots will be mailed Sept. 2. Voters have until Saturday to register by mail or at other locations for the primary election, although they can do it in person in a county courthouse as late as Sept. 2.

The state has 3.4 million registered voters, and those in 28 counties will vote entirely by mail in the fall primary. In last November's election, only four counties were vote-by-mail only. Spokane has an advisory question about mail-only balloting on the November ballot.

Beginning Monday, the state will begin airing an education campaign to inform voters of the changes.

Susan Gilmore: 206-464-2054 or sgilmore@seattletimes.com