The Northwest seems to be a leader in the vote-by-mail trend

In proposing Tuesday to make local elections an entirely vote-by-mail affair, King County Executive Ron Sims was following a Northwest trend toward making polling places a relic of the past.

Oregon in 2000 became the only state to agree to entirely abandon voting at the polls. Washington has gradually followed, with 33 of 39 counties now committed to voting by mail, not including King County.

But not everyone is following the Northwest's lead. Many states cling to the definition of the absentee voter as someone who had better have a darn good excuse for not showing up at the polls.

"On the East Coast they still view us as being very weird," said Secretary of State Sam Reed, a longtime advocate of voting by mail.

Only half the states allow people to vote absentee without a valid reason, according to the Election Reform Information Project. In Connecticut, for example, to get an absentee ballot, voters must swear they can't make it to the polls due to illness, military service or being out of town.

There is some evidence that all-mail elections boost turnout, particularly in low-profile local elections. Oregon and Washington officials also have found them to be less expensive.

But national critics of all-mail elections dispute their effect on voter turnout and argue their shortfalls — the loss of a civic ritual and the potential for fraud — outweigh the convenience.

"The only good thing that can be said about mail voting is it's cheaper," said Curtis Gans, director of the Center for the Study of the American Electorate at American University, and a leading expert on voting patterns.

Gans authored a study last year which found states promoting easier absentee voting have, by some measures, fared worse in terms of voter turnout. In hot political years, when turnout spiked nationally, the study found states with liberal absentee rules had smaller increases in turnout than states that retained strict rules.

Robert Richie, executive director of FairVote, a Maryland-based voting-reform think tank, said the impact of mail balloting on turnout is often overblown.

"It's not going to bring any new people out to vote, but it could bring people who vote in presidential races out to vote in local races," said Richie.

Critics argue voting by mail effectively eliminates the concept of the secret ballot and leads to the potential for mischief; ballots could be stolen from mailboxes, or voters could be coerced by pushy bosses and activists.

Supporters of mail balloting argue fraud can be avoided as long as signatures on mail ballots are adequately verified. Oregon has not had widespread reports of fraud since switching to all-mail elections.

Oregon officials, though, say they have seen some increase in voter turnout since switching to all-mail elections. Reed College researchers last year reported the new system was popular among Oregon voters and said liberalized absentee rules appear to have a "small but measurable effect" on turnout.

The effect has been particularly pronounced in small local elections that some voters might have normally ignored, said John Lindback, director of elections for the Oregon Secretary of State's office. Some of those elections used to draw fewer than 10 percent of registered voters, but that doubled or tripled under the all-mail system, he said.

Reed notes that Washington state saw similar results in the 1997 special election on whether to use taxpayer money to build a stadium for the Seattle Seahawks. Counties that decided to vote entirely by mail that year had vastly higher turnouts than counties that retained poll voting.

Lindback said Oregon shows the evolution toward all-mail elections is inevitable once states allow people to choose between voting by mail or at the polls.

"You have to make a decision sooner or later that you are going to do one type of election. And your voters have already made a decision with their feet: They don't want to go to the polling place," said Lindback.

Jim Brunner: 206-515-5628 or jbrunner@seattletimes.com