Good news break: King County testing prepaid postage on ballot return envelopes

It’s about time:

King Coun­ty Elec­tions is test­ing pre-paid postage with the Feb­ru­ary 14 spe­cial elec­tions in the City of Maple Val­ley and the Shore­line School Dis­trict. Bal­lot pack­ets were mailed on Wednes­day to vot­ers in both juris­dic­tions. Each pack­et includes a return enve­lope with the postage already paid.

“This is some­thing I’ve want­ed to test since I ran for office,” said Julie Wise, King Coun­ty Elec­tions Direc­tor. “Pre-paid postage is anoth­er tool to remove bar­ri­ers to vot­ing and increase con­ve­nience – and this pilot will help us under­stand what it might look like for King County.”

King Coun­ty Elec­tions is pay­ing for the postage, which will cost about $3,300 for Maple Val­ley and about $9,000 for the Shore­line School Dis­trict. Elec­tions is charged only for bal­lots returned through the U.S. Postal Service.

“We are com­mit­ted to ensur­ing a secure, accu­rate and low-bar­ri­er elec­tions sys­tem that enables every cit­i­zen to ful­ly par­tic­i­pate in our democ­ra­cy,” said King Coun­ty Coun­cilmem­ber Rod Dembowski.

Objec­tives for the pre-paid postage pilot include under­stand­ing whether or not the process works admin­is­tra­tive­ly and to see if more vot­ers return their bal­lots than in pre­vi­ous elec­tions. Bal­lot pack­ets include an infor­ma­tion­al insert explain­ing that the postage on a voter’s return enve­lope is paid and that they can imme­di­ate­ly return their bal­lots through the U.S. Postal Ser­vice. Bal­lots can also be brought to one of nine drop box­es open for the election.

“This test of pre-paid postage on bal­lots under­scores our con­tin­ued efforts to expand vot­er turnout, includ­ing qua­dru­pling the num­ber of bal­lot drop box­es across King Coun­ty,” said King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Dow Con­stan­tine. “We want vot­ing to be as easy as pos­si­ble to ensure our poli­cies and insti­tu­tions reflect the will of the people.”

There are a total of 64,032 reg­is­tered vot­ers in Maple Val­ley and the Shore­line School Dis­trict. King Coun­ty Elec­tions esti­mates a 30 per­cent vot­er turnout rate.

Maple Val­ley will vote on a gen­er­al oblig­a­tion bond for park and recre­ation facil­i­ty improve­ments. The Shore­line School Dis­trict, which includes Lake For­est Park, will vote on a school con­struc­tion bond.

We’re very glad to see this pilot project hap­pen­ing, but there ought to be a com­mit­ment to mak­ing it per­ma­nent for future elec­tions. Low­er­ing bar­ri­ers to vot­ing must be a pri­or­i­ty at both the state and local lev­els. Vot­er turnout has been a down­ward tra­jec­to­ry for years and action is need­ed to reverse this harm­ful trend.

Pro­vid­ing bal­lot return envelopes with pre­paid postage sim­pli­fies par­tic­i­pat­ing in elec­tions because it means vot­ers can sim­ply take their com­plet­ed bal­lot to any post office with­out need­ing to hunt for — or pur­chase — a stamp. There should­n’t be any cost involved in exer­cis­ing the sacred duty of vot­ing. Requir­ing stamps to vote by mail is akin to charg­ing a tiny poll tax. It’s a prac­tice that needs to end.

Last year, Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sec­re­tary of State chal­lenger Tina Pod­lodows­ki (who is now run­ning to become Chair of the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty) cam­paigned on pro­vid­ing fund­ing to imple­ment pre­paid postage on return bal­lots to all of Wash­ing­ton’s thir­ty-nine coun­ties. Pod­lodows­ki was resound­ing­ly backed by King Coun­ty vot­ers, but came up short in swing coun­ties like Pierce, where Repub­li­can incum­bent Kim Wyman cruised to reelec­tion with big majorities.