Bill to ease all-mail voting

OLYMPIA – A bill that would make it easier for counties to switch to all mail-in voting headed to the governor on Wednesday, after winning approval from the House and Senate.

While the bill doesn’t require the entire state to vote by mail, as Oregon chose to do in 1998, it may hasten the process by giving counties the option of eliminating poll sites.

Gov. Christine Gregoire has said she will sign the measure.

Rep. Kathy Haigh, D-Shelton, chair of the House State Government, Operations & Accountability Committee, said representatives chose to concur with Senate amendments to make the switch voluntary because they didn’t want to risk having the bill die. The House had first wanted to make the change mandatory by 2008, then suggested 2012.

“It’s much more important we have the option there for the counties,” she said. “The date was important, we fought for it the whole time, but it’s not worth losing the whole bill.”

The House passed the amended version 83-13 Wednesday. The Senate passed the bill last week 28-20.

The legislation says each county council or board of commissioners would make the decision. Currently, a county can make the switch only if it has no precincts of more than 200 people. Ferry, Okanogan, Clallam and Skamania counties already have all-mail voting and Whatcom and Mason counties are making the switch. Other counties have indicated they want to study mail-only ballots.

Proponents say that in a state where about 70 percent of voters already vote by mail, it doesn’t make sense for counties to spend money to rent poll sites, pay poll workers or worry about hundreds of voting machines.

Rep. Bill Hinkle, R-Cle Elum, said his no vote was a “protest vote” against mail-in balloting in general, which he says has become too easy and opens the door for fraud.

“I feel ultimately that mail-in ballots should be reserved for those with a real conflict on voting day,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a good policy, period. What we’ve done now is open up a door that we can’t shut.”

The bill was one of several introduced after the governor’s race that saw Democrat Christine Gregoire win by 129 votes after a hand recount of nearly 2.9 million ballots.