Letters to the editor

Red flags

What's in the mail? A negligible way to transmit democracy

Editor, The Times:

I'm disappointed but not surprised King County Executive Ron Sims wants to go 100-percent vote-by-mail ["Polling places may be history in King County," Times page one, Dec. 21]. He puts a smokescreen around our elections department, implying he will improve things [but is] actually making them worse.

Absentee ballots must be minimized, not increased. Other states have made voting easier with early voting, but vote-by-mail is a disaster waiting to happen. Its main "benefit" is that it hides screw-ups in elections, whether due to fraud or accidental human error.

Can we audit this system and ensure that no ballots are added to the bunch or that no extra bubbles are filled at the elections department? Have we forgotten Jeff Dean, the convicted embezzler who used to run our absentee-counting facility?

What happens if someone offers me $10 to vote for a given candidate — or threatens [me with the loss of] my job if I do so? What if I were voting for the president or a judge?

We should never give up our secret ballot! Clean elections require voter-verified paper ballots and robust auditing. Elections requirements can be summarized in one word: transparency Unfortunately, vote-by-mail keeps the public in the dark.

— Julie Goldberg, Seattle

Invitation to the party

It is disturbing to see King County Councilwoman Kathy Lambert put partisanship over the interests of her constituents, vowing to oppose all-mail balloting because "it's a party thing."

Right now, King County has the worst of both worlds. While a growing majority of votes are already cast by mail, we still expend an enormous amount of money and energy to provide 500 neighborhood polling sites.

This duplication has been identified as a serious obstacle to reform by both the Citizens' Election Oversight Committee and the Blue Ribbon Commission. These groups studied mail balloting as conducted in other places and found it reliable. More than 80 percent of Washington counties (many controlled by Republicans) have already chosen to vote by mail.

Keeping poll-voting for less than a third of the votes does not address the alleged potential for fraud that so terrifies the GOP. Cooler heads know the actual risks can and are being addressed.

The Republican Party members have declared permanent war on our election system, and show no interest in joining with their fellow citizens to improve it. That's their right, but elected officials have a higher obligation and should work with their colleagues to build a system in which we can all have confidence.

— Tyler Page (past member, King County Citizens' Election Oversight Committee), Kent

An insured package

Good for Ron Sims! My wife and I had always been in-person voters. But for the 2004 elections, we reluctantly switched to voting by mail.

Florida 2000, the specter of e-voting machines coming to King County, and revelations that Diebold Elections Systems cannot be trusted to produce e-voting machines with even the most basic safeguards against fraud, were just too much.

I miss going to the polls, but the sanctity of the vote trumps any sadness and loss I feel. I support Sims' plan for all-mail elections, because I know political operatives can't hack into my paper ballot.

— Jason Black, Redmond

No forwarding address

I am very concerned about Ron Sims' proposal to require all of King County to vote by mail. This proposal is going to disenfranchise a lot of eligible voters and make our election system even more skewed.

I am a social worker, and often work with low-income and homeless families. Many of these families live in motels, with friends, in shelters, or even in cars. They generally are very transient, moving every two months or so. This is a population already underrepresented at the polls. If they need a mailing address in order to receive a ballot, they will be ineligible.

Mail-in voting is already available and readily accessible for those who want it. Why make our voting system any more limited than it already is? Sims should be focusing on increasing the number of people voting rather than cutting corners.

— Sarah Bones, Kirkland

Polar opposites

The lady or the taker

It is rare to see a pure example of integrity and venality juxtaposed in Congress. We have seen one this week in the U.S. Senate in the battle between our Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska ["Cantwell blocks bid to drill in refuge," page one, Dec. 22].

We should be proud to have her representing us.

— James VanderMeer, Seattle

The barren or the peer

For 36 years, Sen. Ted Stevens has balanced Alaska's interests against those who want to turn the whole state into a national park, and the equally large group that wants to rape and pillage our resources without benefit to the residents of Alaska.

We live on the less than 3 percent of the state that is in private ownership and Sen. Stevens is our hero.

Congress has broken every agreement it has made with the state of Alaska since statehood — whether on land transfers, revenue shares from the potential development of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge — the list goes on and on.

And the media: They go for the easy political sound-bite solution and labels Stevens' projects pork. In a land where the federal government dominates our resources, these are ludicrous labels. Alaska is 50 years behind the rest of the country in roads, aviation and every other category of federally regulated activity. Complying with federal regulations makes the cost of our infrastructure obscenely expensive when standards developed for an Eastern megalopolis are applied to primitive rural Alaska.

Sen. Stevens has fought the good fight for a long time and we pray he will continue for another 20 years.

We Alaskans look for the time when Washington will once again elect senators with the intelligence, balance and sense of fairness that Stevens has displayed throughout his 36 years in the Senate.

— Frank McQueary, 53-year resident of Alaska, Anchorage

Holiday fire

Not burning evenly

I don't get it. If I'm offended by black people, I'm a racist. If I'm offended by gays, I'm a homophobe. If I think of women as less than equals, then I'm a sexist, but if I'm offended by a Judeo/Christian celebration, then I'm exercising my "First Amendment" rights?

How does that work?

— John Hession, Redmond

Light on the day

Does it strike anyone else how utterly ridiculous it is to fight over words during this time of "peace and good will"?

The derivation of the term "holidays" (as in Happy Holidays) is holy days. That should satisfy everyone.

Let's all lighten up and enjoy the season.

— Jan Schwert, Seattle