King Country (Seattle), Washington is getting a reputation as home to the nation's longest delays in counting ballots. The problems now are chronic. Operating an all-mail system mean central office delays in checking signatures that used to be checked at hundreds of polling places. The state law that allows ballots to count if they are post-marked anytime before midnight on election day further compounds the wait. And, this year there is yet another innovation in causing delays, the bureaucratic decision at King County to hold up returns for a full day after each new batch of a few thousand is reported. On election night there was a report at 8:15 and then nothing--until the next afternoon at 4:30, when a few percent more trickled in. Same thing today. (The elections report schedule shows ballots being counted daily until November 24.) The County has budget problems but no one is saying how they are effectng the counting of ballots.

As of Thursday afternoon, the mayor's race in Seattle is still undecided and, apparently, only about 50 to 60 percent of the ballots cast have been received and counted. Delays in King County have been long enough in close races of recent years to keep the issue of victory in doubt for weeks and to start attracting lawyers like political vultures. If you want anxiety and contention, go with this system.

The old system usually worked fine. Most votes were tallied and reported election night. People who were ill or out of town cast absentee ballots, but these were not numerous enough to overwhelm the elections staff. Polls closed at 8 p.m.--period. Soon after the polls closed the "early returns" were reported, and then new reports continued being reported through much of the night. In Washington, as in many states now, a near-complete tally was often available by midnight.

Same day voting in Washington State's past--and in other states now--meant that the community aspect of voting was respected. Voters all got the same information about the candidates from the media and the candidates at the same time, as (to repeat) they still do in most of the country. People also received the election results together during the evening after the election. There often was a satisfying drama about it--the democratic process in relatively efficient and transparent operation.

Today in Washington, we face the prospect of election campaigns in the future where a truly important late-breaking event or development will not be reflected in a major way at the polls because a large part of the electorate already has voted. ("If only I had known!"," people will say.) Indeed, the old rhythm of campaigns has been disrupted has been disrupted and it can be said that some election results might be different if people voted en bloc on one given day. As to ending the vote gathering at a time-certain, this past Tuesday evening, after the first vote tally reports, it became clear that the race for mayor in Seattle was a near tie, so workers for one candidate actually went out looking for more voters who could be helped to vote, with the resulting ballots then taken to a late-night post office near the airport.

To be sure, there is certain pleasure in sitting around the kitchen table now, perhaps as a family, and deciding how to vote--and actually voting--and preparing the ballot for the mail. But in the recent past (and in most of America) you and your family could still go over a sample ballot and the information in the voters pamphlet together. On election day in the recent past you had the satisfaction of seeing your neighbors doing their civic duty at the polls. (See Steve Buri's article from Crosscut below.) And you did not have to worry, as now, about the potential for fraud when special interests corral the otherwise uninterested and effectively vote them.

What we have now is technological regress, not progress. In the computer era things have slowed down more than in the 19th century when ballots were cast on paper, or in Canada today, where national election results by riding (district) are available within about two hours.

Has all-absentee balloting increased participation? Not a lot, apparently. But it certainly has increased frustration and doubt.

Now imagine if the whole country adopted this system!

Postscript: Secretary of State Sam Reed has asked the Washington Legislature to require that the mail-in ballots be received by election night. The legislators have not acted on this reform for the obvious reason that people won't trust the Post Office to deliver the ballots to the elections officers on time. How do you know that the ballot mailed on Monday will arrive by the next day, for example? The proposed reform still would represent an improvement on the system we have now. But it is not the full answer. Thanks especially to King County, Washington State's election system has been painted into a corner.