Edi­tor’s Note: Tina Pod­lodows­ki is one of two final­ists for the posi­tion of Sec­re­tary of State. Today, her cam­paign pub­lished this open let­ter to Sno­homish Coun­ty elect­ed lead­ers, call­ing on them to take imme­di­ate action to pro­tect the right to vote. Request­ed actions include the place­ment of more drop box­es through­out the coun­ty. NPI strong­ly sup­ports this open let­ter and thanks Tina for putting it togeth­er. We are reach­ing out to Kim Wyman’s staff to ask if the incum­bent Sec­re­tary of State agrees with Tina that these actions should be taken. 

Dear elect­ed officials:

We request imme­di­ate action to pro­tect the rights of all Sno­homish Coun­ty vot­ers in the upcom­ing Novem­ber 8th gen­er­al election.

Free and fair elec­tions are vital to the health of any democ­ra­cy and in our democ­ra­cy, your vote is your voice. Sad­ly, the voic­es of some vot­ers will not be heard this year unless we remove seri­ous bar­ri­ers to voting.

On Sep­tem­ber 12th, 2016, the Everett Her­ald report­ed that Sno­homish Coun­ty bal­lots in the Novem­ber 2016 elec­tion will require six­ty-eight cents postage due to the weight of the bal­lot. (Corn­field, Jer­ry: “Longest Bal­lot in 10 Years Will Cost You 68 Cents to Mail.” Everett Her­ald 9/12/2016.)

This news is alarm­ing because Sno­homish Coun­ty does not cur­rent­ly pro­vide an ade­quate num­ber of bal­lot drop box­es to serve the needs of its vot­ers. There are only twelve bal­lot drop-box loca­tions in Sno­homish Coun­ty. By com­par­i­son, there are thir­ty-six bal­lot drop off loca­tions – three times as many – in Pierce Coun­ty, which has about the same num­ber of vot­ers as Sno­homish County.

Even with three times as many drop off loca­tions, vot­ers in Pierce County’s Tillicum vil­lage face bar­ri­ers to both pay­ing for postage or trav­el­ing the ten miles to the near­est drop box, and are strug­gling to get a drop box in their neigh­bor­hood. Clear­ly, with only twelve bal­lot drop-box loca­tions, Sno­homish vot­ers are cur­rent­ly underserved.

Accord­ing to the Sur­vey of Per­for­mance of Amer­i­can Elec­tions and PEW Char­i­ta­ble Trusts, more than thir­ty per­cent of Wash­ing­ton vot­ers who used a bal­lot drop box in the 2014 gen­er­al elec­tion did so because they did not have postage or need­ed to save mon­ey on postage.

Now, these same vot­ers must either find a way to afford two stamps on their bal­lot or make the time to track down one of only twelve drop boxes.

Either of these expen­di­tures could be enough to dis­cour­age many from cast­ing their bal­lot and mak­ing their voice heard.

We ask that you take the fol­low­ing four actions imme­di­ate­ly to rec­ti­fy this problem:

1. Request fund­ing for an addi­tion­al fif­teen bal­lot drop box­es and/or drop box vans with extend­ed hours, to be installed before Octo­ber 20th in loca­tions deter­mined by pop­u­la­tion den­si­ty, aver­age income, and cur­rent drop box locations.
2. Devel­op a com­pre­hen­sive out­reach plan to inform vot­ers that two “For­ev­er stamps” or six­ty-eight cents of postage is nec­es­sary to mail back a bal­lot. This infor­ma­tion should be made avail­able in all bal­lot trans­la­tion languages
3. Work with the Unit­ed States Postal Ser­vice to ensure ade­quate train­ing for postal car­ri­ers is pro­vid­ed about the elec­tion laws and best prac­tices for return­ing all bal­lots, regard­less of postage, to the coun­ty elec­tions office.
4. Col­lab­o­rate with local com­mu­ni­ty groups through­out the coun­ty to iden­ti­fy oth­er oppor­tu­ni­ties for com­mu­ni­ca­tion, engage­ment and ensur­ing all vot­ers are able to cast a bal­lot this November.

Thank you for your atten­tion to this seri­ous mat­ter. Vot­ing rights are the bedrock of our democ­ra­cy and we hope you will take imme­di­ate action to rec­ti­fy this seri­ous threat to your con­stituents’ right to vote.

SIGN ON: Fol­low this link to add your name as a sig­na­to­ry to the open let­ter.