Council delays action on all-mail voting plan

Metropolitan King County Council members said Monday they want more information from Elections Director Dean Logan before they agree to close down hundreds of polling places in favor of all-mail voting.

The council delayed a vote for two weeks after asking Logan to answer questions raised by people who said they fear that voting by mail could lead to vote fraud, loss of ballots in the mail and intimidation of some voters.

Several council members were miffed Logan wasn't there to answer questions about his plan to make King County the largest in the nation to go to all-mail elections next year. He was attending a meeting of state election officials.

"I want that response to come from the director of Records, Elections and Licensing Services — the actual guy, the boss," said County Councilman Dow Constantine, D-Seattle.

The vote-by-mail proposal, promoted by County Executive Ron Sims and endorsed by the council's five-member Democratic majority in a party-line committee vote last month, is expected to be approved when it comes up for a final vote.

With 80 percent of voters already voting by mail in some elections, advocates say the county can do a better job of running elections if it eliminates most poll voting. A small number of regional voting centers would be operated for disabled voters and for voters casting provisional ballots.

Every speaker at Monday's hearing opposed the plan. "This is something rare, to get Greens and Republicans to agree about anything," said Gentry Lange, Green Party candidate for county executive last year.

Some Democrats, including Seattle resident Juli Ann Pettingill, also spoke against the proposal. Pettingill said it could result in "little errors and big errors, and little fraud and the monstrous fraud like we saw in Florida."

Earlier Monday, council members expressed concern about vacancies in the Elections Section and insisted on greater oversight of reforms.

A council staff report said 10 of about 50 staff positions remain unfilled by permanent employees, including superintendent, a job vacant since former Superintendent Bill Huennekens was demoted in the face of plummeting morale and ballot-counting mistakes in the 2004 governor's election.

Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or kervin@seattletimes.com