All Washington voters to get prepaid postage on their ballot return envelopes in 2018

Wash­ing­ton Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee and Sec­re­tary of State Kim Wyman have cob­bled togeth­er enough emer­gency fund­ing to ensure that all coun­ties in Wash­ing­ton State can offer pre­paid postage on bal­lot return envelopes this year, Inslee’s office announced in a press release today.

About $600,000 in fund­ing allo­cat­ed to the gov­er­nor’s office by leg­is­la­tors will be paired with anoth­er $600,000 from Wyman’s office to cov­er the costs of waiv­ing the cost of postage for all vot­ers out­side of King County.

“In this year’s elec­tion cycle, five hun­dred and nine­ty-six offices are up for elec­tion, includ­ing U.S. Sen­a­tor, all ten of Washington’s con­gres­sion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tives, more than one hun­dred and twen­ty seats in the Leg­is­la­ture, three state Supreme Court jus­tice­ships, more than twen­ty supe­ri­or and appeals court judge­ships, and four hun­dred and thir­ty-eight coun­ty and local offices,” not­ed the press release.

“More vot­er par­tic­i­pa­tion makes for a stronger democ­ra­cy. Because Wash­ing­ton is a vote-by-mail state, pre-paid postage is one impor­tant way we can reduce bar­ri­ers to cast­ing bal­lots,” said Inslee. “We’ll be work­ing with leg­is­la­tors to secure ongo­ing fund­ing, estab­lish a per­ma­nent statewide pro­gram, and ensure King Coun­ty is reim­bursed for their proac­tive work on this effort.”

“This is about lev­el­ing the play­ing field and mak­ing elec­tions equal for all cit­i­zens of Wash­ing­ton State,” said Wyman, who sup­port­ed the King Coun­ty mea­sure and has sup­port­ed statewide bal­lot postage pro­pos­als for a num­ber of leg­isla­tive sessions.

“I want to thank the gov­er­nor for his col­lab­o­ra­tion, and I look for­ward to work­ing with him to get a bill passed in 2019 to make Wash­ing­ton the first state in Amer­i­ca with per­ma­nent uni­ver­sal postage-paid vot­ing by mail.”

King Coun­ty lead­ers prompt­ly expressed annoy­ance that the state’s largest juris­dic­tion will have to ask for reim­burse­ment in 2019 rather than receiv­ing mon­ey from the state upfront like the oth­er counties.

“We are proud that our lead­er­ship spurred statewide action to increase vot­ing access across Wash­ing­ton,” said Exec­u­tive Dow Con­stan­tine, Coun­cilmem­ber Joe McDer­mott, and Elec­tions Direc­tor Julie Wise in a joint statement.

“How­ev­er, the deci­sion to exclude King Coun­ty — and only King Coun­ty — from the state reim­burse­ment plan for pre­paid bal­lot postage is gross­ly unfair. We urge state lead­ers to recon­sid­er. If the state can­not afford to ful­ly reim­burse all coun­ties for bal­lot postage, it should pro­vide the same par­tial, per vot­er sub­sidy statewide.”

“Our 2.2 mil­lion res­i­dents already fund a dis­pro­por­tion­ate share of the state’s bud­get,” the three elect­ed lead­ers not­ed. “King Coun­ty will con­tin­ue to make vot­ing eas­i­er and more acces­si­ble, and if need­ed we will go to the Leg­is­la­ture next year to again seek fair treat­ment for our residents.”

We under­stand why King Coun­ty lead­ers are annoyed, but to them, we say: This is the price of lead­er­ship. King Coun­ty’s peo­ple and elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives can be very proud that we forced the state exec­u­tive depart­ment into action by imple­ment­ing a plan to pro­vide pre­paid bal­lot return envelopes this year.

King Coun­ty can always go back to the Leg­is­la­ture in 2019 and request reim­burse­ment. A sub­stan­tial num­ber of Wash­ing­ton’s state leg­is­la­tors are from King Coun­ty, includ­ing the cur­rent Speak­er of the House, House Major­i­ty Leader, House Major­i­ty Floor Leader, and Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader.

If Democ­rats remain in con­trol of both hous­es, as expect­ed, the chances are excel­lent such a request would be granted.

What’s impor­tant right now is not where the mon­ey comes from, but that the mon­ey has been found to make this hap­pen. It’s a big deal… it means a major bar­ri­er to vot­ing has been final­ly removed, and on a statewide basis.

Cou­pled with the Access to Democ­ra­cy pack­age (which includes the Vot­ing Rights Act, same-day vot­er reg­is­tra­tion, auto­mat­ic vot­er reg­is­tra­tion, and pre­reg­is­tra­tion), 2018 will go down in our his­to­ry books as a water­shed year for fair­er elections.

Demo­c­ra­t­ic State Par­ty Chair Tina Pod­lodows­ki is jus­ti­fi­ably thrilled that the vot­ing reforms she cam­paigned on when she ran for Sec­re­tary of State two years ago are being imple­ment­ed at last. The arrival of Demo­c­ra­t­ic State Sen­a­tor Man­ka Dhin­gra in Olympia was the key to the Access to Democ­ra­cy pack­age, while King Coun­ty’s bold lead­er­ship was the key to secur­ing pre­paid postage for all.

The Trump regime may be pro­duc­ing dis­as­trous poli­cies at the fed­er­al lev­el, but pro­gres­sive ideas are advanc­ing here at the state level.

That’s some­thing to celebrate.

We thank Gov­er­nor Inslee for say­ing yes to Wyman’s request for emer­gency fund­ing, as we asked him to do, and we look for­ward to help­ing edu­cate vot­ers that there is no longer a cost asso­ci­at­ed with return­ing a bal­lot through the Unit­ed States Postal Ser­vice. We’ll need leg­is­la­tion in 2019 to make the change per­ma­nent. We stand ready to work with Sen­a­tors Pat­ty Kud­er­er and Sam Hunt to get it done, along with Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Zack Hud­gins and Lau­rie Dolan in the House.