County considers all mail elections

Commissioners still to decide on issue

EPHRATA — At a polling place in Grant County during a recent election, only three people showed up to vote. According to the Grant County elections office, two of those voters were poll workers.

Increasing numbers of absentee voters is one reason Grant County Auditor Bill Varney is pushing to conduct all future county elections by mail, and he went before the Grant County Commissioners Tuesday to outline his proposal.

The commissioners took no action, but will deliberate and decide whether to hold a public hearing on the issue.

If the all mail ballot proposal were to be approved for the next election, a commission resolution would have to be passed by June 20, in order to get the practice in place before the September primary.

The proposal brought many questions from the commission, most of which centered on the possibilities of voter fraud.

"I'm not going to sit here and tell you that we're going to catch everyone who forges a signature," Varney said.

But Varney said many concerns about voter fraud would still be around even if the county didn't pursue all mail elections.

"The problems in the general election of the governor's race have always been there," Varney said, but he said those problems were put under a microscope because last year's election was so close.

One of the reasons Varney is pushing for the all mail elections now is a new law that requires his office to have a handicap voting device each of the county's 33 polling places in place by Jan. 1. While the federal government is paying for the initial devices, Varney said the costs of maintenance and replacement would go to Grant County. The county would also have to pay for transportation for each of the devices to and from polling places.

Under Varney's proposal, all polling places would close except for five in more populous parts of the county for voters to drop off their absentee ballots. Each of those five places would also have one of the mandated voting machines on hand. Varney estimates the proposal would save the county approximately $168,000.

The county currently administers both a by mail election and a regular election, a task Varney says is more expensive for the county. He estimates that by switching to all mail elections would save the county about $7,000 per election for the costs incurred by renting polling places and payment of poll workers.

About 55 percent of voters in Grant County have signed up to be permanent absentee voters, and Varney said up to 72 percent of voters did so by absentee ballot in the last election. In a letter to commissioners, Varney said four counties already conduct their election by mail and a handful of others have recently approved the practice.

"I think it would be easier to get this thing started in an odd year election," Varney said.

The idea seemed welcome for commissioner Richard Stevens, who said the idea might make voting easier for voters.

"At least sitting there in your house you can look at resumes of people," he said.