Trial exposed civic cost of voting shortcuts

Gov. Christine Gregoire may have been the winner following Judge John E. Bridges’ historic ruling in Chelan County Superior Court Monday, but that doesn’t make Dino Rossi the loser.

Except for a churlish snipe about the politics of the Washington state Supreme Court, he accepted the decision with what could be called grace and ended his challenge to the 2004 gubernatorial election. He exited with his chin high and his odds of knocking off U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell next year improved. Rossi, whose chances of invalidating Gregoire’s election were a longshot anyway, is unscathed.

There was a loser, though. The bruises dealt by Bridges’ decision and the proceedings that led up to it were inflicted on the state’s election system. For the past six months, embarrassment has followed embarrassment over misplaced ballots, illegal voting and repeated procedural lapses that caused just about everyone to agree the real outcome couldn’t be known with certainty.

The official result apparently goes down as a 133-vote win for Gregoire — the 129-vote margin from the last recount plus four illegal votes deemed by Bridges to have been cast for Rossi. Yet thousands of improperly cast ballots have been identified with no way of knowing which candidate benefited from them.

Bridges had harsh things to say about the election process, describing a culture of inertia and irresponsibility, but the central issue of the trial — the legitimacy of the gubernatorial election — overshadowed them. Before interest in the episode fades, however, one insightful observation needs to be repeated, loudly.

Early in the opinion he laid out so meticulously on Monday, Bridges noted: “Extraordinary efforts are in place to make it easier to vote, but unfortunately, I fear, it will be much more difficult to account for those votes in the future.”

He didn’t offer an elaboration, but permit me to volunteer one of my own. Our elections officials at both the state and county levels have put so much emphasis on increasing voter turnout that they’ve compromised the security of the ballot. Quantity trumps quality. Volume tops validity.

Bridges didn’t specify the measures that inspired his concerns, but there are plenty to choose from, many of them spotlighted by the debates that have raged since Nov. 2. Absence of identification requirements at the polling place. Careless handling of provisional ballots used when a voter’s eligibility is in question. Lax enforcement of laws disqualifying felons from voting. Inadequate safeguards against sending ballots to voters who have died. Disarray in the offices that are supposed to receive and organize ballots when the voting is over and the counting begins.

For seemingly honorable reasons, election officials strive to uphold the ideals of self-governance. If they’re going to make a mistake it’s going to be by letting the unqualified in rather than keeping the eligible out. The best measure of a healthy democracy, they figure, is a big turnout. Raw numbers.

The biggest culprit in the mix is the relentless push for voting by mail. Nobody’s taken the idea as far as Oregon, where all elections are conducted with mail-in ballots, but elections officials everywhere are in love with the economies and turnout figures that mail ballots produce. Postage is easier on a county auditor’s budget than the logistical costs of arranging and staffing polling places. And voters who don’t have to venture beyond the mail box to either receive or submit their ballots are more likely to participate. More likely, too, it turns out, to vote for a dead spouse. Ah, well.

It’s worth noting that most of the ballots that gave the state such a red face after last fall’s election were cast by mail. It’s plausible to think that someone freshly out of prison from a felony conviction might be less bold about voting illegally if he had to do it in public, side by side with neighbors who know his history, than behind locked doors.

That’s not the overriding issue, however. Voting is a civic experience, the ultimate expression of democratic values. Voting is the way we come together as a collective public and make our judgments known.

The keepers of the process should be leading cheers for the spirit of community, but they’d rather send us into isolation. If they want to restore the elections process to the level of dignity and respect it deserves, they’ll undertake a battery of tasks. They’ll intensify training of personnel. They’ll design ironclad ballot-handling processes. They’ll make provisional ballots distinct so they aren’t mistakenly run through tabulation machines with unchallenged ballots.

And they will reverse the trend that has converted the American tradition of voting from a shared endeavor to an act of exile.