The King County Council is voting this afternoon on the forced vote-by-mail ordinance. The Council meeting starts at 1:30pm (agenda here), but there's a lot of business before they'll get to vote-by-mail. The vote-by-mail ordinance, 2006-0191 is item #8. I believe Dean Logan is still scheduled to answer questions. The accompanying appropriations measure, 2006-0190.2, is item #9. Public comment is scheduled only for the approprations measure. However if Councilmembers propose amendments to the main ordinance, there might also be public comment on the amendments. Attend if you can, e-mail the Councilmembers if you can't. Details for attendance and emailing here. As I wrote on Friday, the highest priorities for Elections right now should be rebuilding the staff and earning back public confidence. The dramatic and controversial shift to all-mail voting can wait. When I heard Ron Sims and Larry Phillips on their radio informercial last night they didn't sound 100% certain that this will pass. The four Republicans seem pretty set against it and four Democrats seem unwaveringly for it. The one Councilmember who has expressed some concerns in recent weeks is Democrat Bob Ferguson. So there is a real chance to persuade the Council to do the right thing and postpone this for now.

As my final argument against all-mail voting in King County before the vote, I'll say it's a matter of transparency and trust. A shift to all-mail voting is an enormous shift of power from the citizens (who oversee elections at the neighborhood polling places) to the Executive branch (which processes all ballots in closed facilities). I think it's generally a bad idea for the citizens to delegate this much power, but especially when the Executive has lost so much of the citizens' trust on elections issues. One of the biggest reasons Executive Sims has lost so much of my trust has been the lack of transparency. If he wants to regain my trust, he can start operating the elections office in a more transparent fashion. Here is a recap of some of the transparency problems, particularly related to mail ballots (and provisional ballots, which are mostly used as substitute mail ballots) --

* It took 9 months for King County to release the complete lists of absentee and provisional ballots from the November 2004 election. Back in December 2004, I made a records request for a list to include all absentee and provisional ballots that were submitted in the November 2004 election. I was told that the only such list that existed was the voter list that was released on December 29 and revised on January 7. As it turns out, they kept much more detailed records of all absentee ballots sent and returned and all provisional ballots that were cast. Unfortunately, they didn't release them until September 2005, months after the contest trial ended. The records revealed hundreds more irregularities (e.g. double voters) than were disclosed to the litigants in the court case.

* When the 90+ uncounted absentee ballots from November 2004 were discovered in late March 2005, King County refused to disclose the names of the disenfranchised voters until after the contest trial. There was no justification for this under the public disclosure laws.

* It took 3 months for King County to release absentee ballot envelopes for inspection. I first asked to examine absentee ballot envelopes from November 2004 in June 2005. It took 3 months and threats of litigation before they released the envelopes. The envelopes revealed many more irregularities than had been disclosed to the litigants.

* It took King County 9 months to disclose that the earlier reports about federal write-in ballots were unsubstantiated. In January 2005, King County claimed that "251 federal write-in absentee ballots were tabulated. These represent validly cast ballots, that are not accounted for in the registration database.". After 9 months of records requests, inadequate incremental responses, and a motion in Snohomish County Court to compel disclosure, King County finally acknowledged that there were only 113 such ballots, that there was no documentation to support the earlier claim of 251 and that there was no documentation to support the claim that these ballots were validly cast. (one of the ballots gave only a Vancouver, BC address, no local address)

* It took King County 6 months to release transaction logs for voter registration and absentee ballot records. I first asked for the transaction logs on September 30, 2005. The first production of December 2005 was not complete. It took until March 10 before King County finally acknowledged that the files were not complete and agreed to release the remaining records. These records were finally released on April 4th. File dates on the data disks indicated that the files had actually been generated on March 15th and 16th. The various records confirmed many more irregularities in the November 2004 (e.g. double voters, ballots accepted from unregistered voters) than King County had ever acknowledged. The mail ballot records are still not complete.

There are more examples of inadequate disclosure and disclosure that was delayed too long. These are just some of the highlights.