All-mail voting likely next year in King County

King County likely will switch to all-mail voting in 2007.

The change was approved Monday by a full committee of the Metropolitan King County Council, and the full council vote could take place on Tuesday.

In the 2005 general election, 75 percent of ballots were cast through the mail.

"The public is way out in front of the electeds on this and they've made it very clear that they like the convenience and thoughtfulness that voting by mail provides them," said Council President Larry Phillips, D-Seattle.

The change would take effect in next fall's primary or general election.

Critics of the current system that includes both poll and absentee voting say it is a waste of resources to run 500 polling places and to train 4,000 poll workers and volunteers for each general election.

This change, they say, would allow the King County elections department to focus on running a single mail-voting system smoothly after suffering widespread problems during the 2004 gubernatorial race.

A smaller number of regional polling centers would remain open for voters who wish to drop off their ballots on Election Day. In 2005, the Legislature allowed counties to conduct all elections by mail, and 34 counties have already adopted all-mail balloting.

All five Democratic council members — Phillips, Julia Patterson of SeaTac, Dow Constantine of Seattle, Larry Gossett of Seattle, Bob Ferguson of Seattle — voted for the proposal. Three Republican council members, Reagan Dunn of Bellevue, Kathy Lambert of Redmond and Pete von Reichbauer of Federal Way, opposed it. Jane Hague from Bellevue was absent.

Richard Borkowski, a member of Washington Citizens for Fair Elections, opposes all-mail voting because of potential security risks.

"The main problem is the security and the fact that they're outsourcing the ballots to the post office. Then they have this private firm that receives the ballots and sorts them as they come in," neither of which are controlled by the county, he said.

County Executive Ron Sims asked the County Council for $1.8 million to pay for the conversion, including voter education and a management consulting team. The county has applied for $5.5 million in federal grants to buy new ballot-counting equipment.

Sharon Pian Chan: 206-464-2958