Nov. 16 Daily News editorial

Secretary of State Sam Reed, who for nearly a decade has advocated an Election Day deadline for mail-in ballots, gained an influential ally last week. Gov. Chris Gregoire apparently has seen enough of Washington’s slow-motion vote tabulations, some of which have left voters in the dark about close races for weeks. The governor says she’s ready to join Reed in the effort speed up the post-Election Day counts.

Good. Gregoire should be an effective spokeswoman for this reform. She and her 2004 and 2008 Republican rival Dino Rossi could be the poster children for advocates of an earlier deadline for mail-in ballots. Their 2004 race ended way too close to call. The first count was completed more than two weeks after Election Day. Rossi led by 261 votes, out of the some 2.8 million votes cast. Another recount gave it to Gregoire by a slim 129 votes — eight weeks after Election Day.

That long post-election wait, of course, was exceptional. But Washingtonians have become accustomed to waiting a week or more after Election Day for the final results in hard-fought races. Seattle voters were still waiting to know who their mayor would be about a week after the Nov. 3 election. More than a week after the polls closed, Woodland voters were still waiting for the final verdict in a school board race.

This prolonged suspense has become almost routine since virtually the entire state began voting entirely by mail. Ninety-nine percent of Washingtonians vote by mail. Only Pierce County has polling sites as an option, and only a relatively few Pierce County voters exercise that option.

A lot of other states, including Oregon, vote by mail and manage to get their votes tabulated in a more timely fashion. Washington’s problem is that, unlike most other states, it does not require ballots to be in elections’ offices by the end of Election Day. Washington mail-in ballots need only be postmarked on Election Day.

The fix — changing the law to require that ballots be received by the close of Election Day — could not be simpler. But lawmakers have long resisted applying this fix. The resistance has been based on the notion that such a change would effectively disenfranchise a great many Washington voters. We don’t think that gives voters enough credit. We think voters would quickly and easily adapt to the Election Day deadline.

It’s not that difficult. County elections officials make it easy, even for those voters who can’t make up their minds until the very last day. Ballots can be dropped off at collection boxes just before the polls close, and they’ll be counted. Oregon voters have no problem with this deadline. As The Seattle Times noted in an editorial supporting a move to the Election Day deadline this past legislative session, in the 2008 election, only 136 votes went uncounted in Multnomah County, which as about 427,000 registered voters.

It’s past time that Washington lawmakers sign off on this simple, but effective, remedy for the state’s many delayed election returns.