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Secretary of state promotes election reforms

By Kathie Durbin
Published: December 6, 2009, 12:00am
3 Photos
Files/The Columbian
Secretary of State Sam Reed discusses election issues.
Files/The Columbian Secretary of State Sam Reed discusses election issues. Photo Gallery

Sam Reed wants ballots earlier, primaries revised

Secretary of State Sam Reed is tilting at windmills these days.

He says the state should help Washington voters learn election results on election night by moving up the ballot deadline.

He also wants to see a national overhaul of the front-loaded presidential primary schedule that forced candidates to campaign in the snows of January last year.

Reed discussed both issues with The Columbian last week.

Both are long shots, the state’s chief elections officer admits.

Here’s Reed on ballot deadlines:

“People deserve to have meaningful results on election night. So do candidates. I don’t think there is any justifiable reason not to make election night more meaningful.”

Under Washington law, ballots must be postmarked before midnight on Election Day. That means voters, candidates and ballot measure sponsors often wait days to get results as mailed ballots trickle in from other states and countries.

Washington’s neighbor takes a different approach. Oregon requires that ballots — with the exception of those mailed by military personnel deployed overseas — must be received by local election offices by 8 p.m. on Election Day.

In all but the closest races, that may make the final unofficial tally available a day or two earlier than in Washington.

But Reed, a Republican, said that every time he introduces legislation to move up the state’s deadline for ballot returns, he runs into a brick wall.

Each time, “It’s virtually DOA,” he said. “Incumbents seem to think (the current system) works fine.”

‘Clearly defined’

Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey, also a Republican, says he has opposed the change — until recently.

“I thought it was a good policy to provide people as much opportunity as possible to gather information about the candidates and issues on the ballot, and that the system has worked well for us,” he said. “People are accustomed to it. I didn’t see a need for change.”

He also wasn’t convinced that under the Oregon system, results would come that much sooner. For one thing, there’s a limit to how many ballots machines can tally on election night.

And the real cliffhangers, like the 2004 Washington governor’s race, aren’t decided on election night anyway, Kimsey said.

“A close race is a close race until it’s certified. If it’s not a close race, by definition you know what the results are on election night.”

The actual delay in vote-counting under the Washington system is probably minor, Kimsey said.

“I think a very instructive example is the Gordon Smith-Jeff Merkley race (for the Oregon Senate in 2007). The results were not known until Thursday. If that race had occurred in Washington, I think you would have known the results by Friday.”

But Kimsey said he’s no longer opposed to the idea because he sees some advantages to Oregon’s hard-and-fast ballot return deadlines.

“I learned a couple of years ago that in Multnomah County they only get a few ballots returned after 8 p.m., and they have twice as many registered voters as Clark County,” he said.

In contrast, about 300 ballots cast in Clark County in this year’s general election had to be disqualified because they arrived postmarked after Election Day, he said.

“What I’ve come to understand is that it’s this very clearly defined deadline,” he said “There’s really no doubt about it, whereas the postmark deadline is a little more vague.”

That means Washington’s system carries a higher risk of disenfranchising last-minute votes, Kimsey said.

Regional primaries

On another election reform issue, Reed is promoting a national campaign to create a system of rotating, regional presidential primary elections beginning in 2012.

The National Association of Secretaries of State is trying to win support from the two major political parties for an alternative to the 2008 primary schedule, in which 32 states held their presidential primaries in January or February.

That schedule winnowed the field before most Americans had focused on the election and left the surviving candidates campaigning in only a few key states.

The association’s own plan would divide the country into four geographic regions and hold regional primaries in March, April, May and June, with the order of the elections rotating every four years. A lottery would determine the order the first year.

Reed said the association has met with the rules committees of both the Democratic and Republican national committees but has made little headway on winning a buy-in on its plan. Discussions have bogged down over how the regional primaries would be organized, he said. The GOP came up with six different schemes.

“I do expect to make progress in terms of timelines,” Reed said. But whether a new plan succeeds, he said, “will be a test of the muscle of the parties.”

“This is one of those really, really good ideas that’s never going to happen because of politics,” Kimsey predicted.

Dwight Pelz, chairman of the Washington Democratic Party, said a commission within the Democratic National Committee is studying how to structure presidential primaries in 2012, when President Barack Obama is expected to seek re-election.

“There is nothing as politically charged as this nationally,” Pelz said. “It’s a high-stakes discussion.”

Washington currently holds party caucuses and a state presidential primary in February. Pelz said the state party will get its guidance for 2012 from the national committee.

“We will hold our primary when the DNC tells us to,” he said. “It’s possible the DNC may do away with caucus states. This is not a rational process. It’s a political process.”

Kathie Durbin: 360-735-4523; kathie.durbin@columbian.com.

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