70% , 62% , who's counting?

King County Elections is inflating the vote-by-mail numbers again:

A majority of Seattle voters, about 62 percent, are registered as permanent absentee voters

Fewer than 60% are permanent absentee by choice (i.e. excluding military, overseas, out-of-town students etc.)

and between 70 to 80 percent of voters in any given election choose to vote by mail.

Seattle's actual vote-by-mail percentages in recent high-turnout elections were below 70%:

November 2004: 198,858 / 320,431 = 62.1%
November 2005: 129,650 / 194,061 = 66.8%
November 2006: 150,307 / 226,568 = 66.3%

Ron Sims' elections office routinely inflates the vote-by-mail statistics to marginalize those who know that poll voting is more secure and reliable than mail voting. Indeed, more Seattle voters went to the polls in November 2004 than voted at all in either the 2004 or 2007 levy elections.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at February 26, 2007 11:31 PM | Email This