Our View: Election-related cost savings deserve scrutiny

No agency of Washington state government will escape the budget mashing now under way in Olympia, where the expected revenue shortfall for 2009-’11 has grown to $9 billion.

The paramount questions facing all top officials is not whether to cut but where and how deep. Still, the decisions the Legislature must ultimately make should be reached after careful study and with informed input by those affected.

Secretary of State Sam Reed, whose office includes diverse activities, has called upon each division to come up with a share of savings. The questionable result is that the elections branch, arguably the most solemn of the office’s responsibilities, is pondering elimination of some longstanding duties, one of them mandated by the state constitution.

Relatively late in the legislative session, Reed had measures introduced that would do away with his office’s constitutional obligation to run newspaper ads telling voters across the state about upcoming elections on constitutional amendments. A similar statutory requirement regarding initiatives and referenda would be dropped, too.

Meanwhile, Reed would do away with the Election Administration and Certification Board, a panel of county auditors and representatives from the Legislature, the major political parties and Reed’s office. It is responsible for keeping local elections workers adequately trained and for making sure they run elections correctly and efficiently.

Another savings would be dropping the cost of printing envelopes and instructions for overseas voters including military service members. That expense would be turned over to counties, so taxpayers would still foot the bill.

From Reed’s point of view, the activities he wants to eliminate are outmoded and redundant. His office believes the state Voters Pamphlet and government Web sites are better for notifying the public about ballot items than the small print in newspaper legal ads (although Reed plans to curtail the amount of space allowed in the pamphlet for candidates and ballot measure advocates to explain themselves).

Reed is a public servant who has demonstrated his commitment to clean government. But like other officials, he has only unappealing options to choose from. Those he has presented deserved more public discussion than they got. Several key stakeholders – such as Spokane County Auditor Vickie Dalton, chairwoman of the targeted Election Administration and Certification Board – were caught by surprise when the proposal came out. Their viewpoints could have been valuable.

If these proposals are rushed through a tense legislative session and result in less-efficient election administration across Washington, the state will pay a civic price that the fiscal savings won’t cover.