Oh, Steve, that photo gave me a wonkgasm.

I would have said it's the Governator's incorrect statements that the Deeply Flawed Tunnel is go, when we haven't even finished the legally required two state EIS hearings or any of the federally required EIS hearings for EPA and other potential impacts.

Besides, everyone knows your votes don't count.

If they did, Seattle itself would literally be the tipping point for all statewide elections and the rest of the state would realize that shoving things down our throats is literal political suicide.

@1 - Mission Accomplished!

The problem isn't that we start counting ballots too late. The problem is that mail-in ballots can be postmarked up to the election date. This causes ballots to trickle in for about a week after the election is over. Starting to count ballots the day before the election would do absolutely nothing to solve this problem.

If we want to know the results sooner, the only real solution is to require that ballots must be received by the election date, not postmarked by the election date. Then nearly all of the ballots could be counted within a day.

Were those "tricks from the Left here and Right here" comments supposed to be hyperlinks? Because I'd love to see what kind of 'tricks' you had in mind when saying people would screw with the process.

While I overall agree that we as citizens can be patient and simply wait a day or two for results, I also think this bill can be implemented in such a way that one day of early counting can be done securely. Hell, you could just add a requirement that those counting votes before election day are sequestered until regular counting begins. It's only one night, and they already work impressive hours during counting anyway.

It totally thought that was Bill Nye the Science Guy.

@4: I would say that if we want to know the results sooner, a better solution is to fucking suck it up. This isn't Survivor, we're not doing this for ratings. I much prefer apprehension or anticlimax to potential disenfranchisement via the vagaries of the USPS.

Wow! Nice pic! Bet you're hung like a horse!!

Geez, they count the ballots here as they come in, and it hasn't caused any problems yet. Maybe you have an over-active imagination.

This document (PDF) from the National Association of Secretaries of State shows that counting starts as much as 15 days before the election in a number of states, including California, Colorado and Florida.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=we…

So maybe this isn't "the most dangerous idea of 2011…"

Ben @7, I'm not saying that we necessarily need to know the results sooner. I'm actually perfectly fine waiting a week or so. Sure, it'd be nice to know the results at 8:05pm on election night, but there really isn't any compelling reason we HAVE to, other than to satisfy our curiosity sooner.

I'm simply saying that if the complaint people have is that it takes too long to know election results, then this proposal to start counting a day ahead of time won't solve that.

Steve, you might want to talk to the folks at King County Elections, because they're already counting ballots prior to election day. The ballots are scanned as they're processed, and the results are recorded. The only thing they wait to do until after the polls close on Tuesday, is run the program that reports the tabulated results, and that only takes a split second.

And Reverse @4,

I've been through this on HA again and again... changing the ballot receipt deadline would not dramatically speed up reporting of the results, as we barely get through processing and counting the ballots we had on hand Monday morning by the time the polls close on Tuesday. The only way to dramatically speed up reporting is to spend the money on more staff, equipment and training.

The law currently says:

"The opening and subsequent processing of return envelopes for any primary or election may begin upon receipt. The tabulation of absentee ballots must not commence until after 8:00p.m. a.m. on the day of the primary or election."

Opening and processing doesn't include counting (i.e. tabulation). That currently isn't allowed until 8pm on election night.

SB5015 would change that to 8am on the Monday before the election. (http://apps.leg.wa.gov/documents/billdoc…)

Some state do allow the counting of their absentee ballots early - but those states do not have 100% vote by mail the way Washington (except for Pierce County) does.

Not sure how votes are counted in Washington, but in CA we feed our optical scan ballot through the machine right their at the polling place, there's no display on it or anything that tells the current count. Presumably, they could start running mail in ballots at any time, and as long as no one can log in and get the count no one (even an anonymous source at the county elections office) could credibly claim to know who's winning.

***Don't hold me to the details. That's just how I have observed it.