Before anybody says "But who doesn't vote because they don't have a stamp?!"...I am an anecdote. In my twenties I I skipped voting a couple times because I didn't have a stamp and didn't want to / couldn't afford a book of stamps. Embarrassing, but true.

Gawd people, HOW MANY TIMES does it need to be said: just drop the damned ballot in your mailbox without a stamp. USPS will deliver it and the county election board will cover the cost. They have literally done this since the first election using mail-in ballots.

How about springing for Certified Mail so that mail-in ballots are handled with somewhere near the care that ballots collected at poling stations once received?

@4:

What makes you think mail-in ballots AREN'T being handled with care now? Do you have evidence that's not the case or is it just something you made up?

This should not be a county matter; it should be a state-wide attribute.

A tiny step but important because it will affect everyone.
Next comes automatic voter registration.
Both contribute to the subjective sense on the part of citizens that their vote does count, is wanted, is important.

@6: agreed. But if the state hasn't done it by now, it's time for the county to take the lead.

@9: nope, it's not the price keeping people from voting. But the fact that for many people (almost all people under 40?) would need an extra trip to the store to buy something they never buy can, well, keep people from voting. Or just look at the evidence. There have been two test cases (Mt Lake Terrace and Shoreline, if my memory serves?) where this has been recently tested, and it increased turnout in both cases relative to what would otherwise be expected. This could have a slight impact on the WA-8 race with Dino Rossi in it, because the King County voters are about 4% more democratic than the district as a whole. Of course, that can only make a difference in a super, super close race, but King County's move to pay for postage could force republicans to actually support a statewide policy change to INCREASE access to polls! It would almost be as if pigs flew on that day.

@3: I usually put a stamp on my ballot, but twice in the past I haven't had one and put it in blank; and twice it was returned by the post office for not having a stamp. Yes, they are supposed to accept it. No, they do not always accept it. (My guess it that they accept it in the couple days before the election, but return it if it is, say, a week before the election...that is fine, I guess, for people who check their mail all the time, which I don't).

Certified Mail? Oh sure. Let's spend $6.74 per ballot, and add thousands to the administrative costs in processing ballots.

If your paranoia is that deep and broad, you can check on-line to see if the county received your ballot, and if it was certified. Of course, there's always a chance they could be lying...

@12:

I call bullshit, as USPS's stated policy on the matter is exactly the opposite of that:

https://about.usps.com/postal-bulletin/2014/pb22391/html/cover_003.htm

If Wyman were doing her job, she'd have been using her office starting on Day One to demand that the Legislature provide her office with funding for state-wide prepaid ballot return envelopes.

Prepaid ballot return envelopes should have been Wyman’s top priority as Secretary of State, but it wasn’t because, as a Republican, she believes that her party currently enjoys an advantage in voter participation and doesn't want to do anything to change that.

Wyman is only acting now because King County is forcing her hand.

@14: Well, that's offensive, calling me out as a full-on fabricating liar. We all know what their stated policy is. I'm telling you that it isn't uniformly followed, and hasn't been followed TWICE for me.

@16:

So YOU say, but give me one good reason why I should automatically assume what you're saying is true, and not just some made up BS to go along with your anonymous handle? This is the Internet, the place where NOBODY knows your name...

Hey rude man, @14, I knew it had been printed before that ballots were not accepted by the post office for no postage, and I've found it. Scroll down to the "5:32pm" update:

https://www.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/08/06/the-secbs-mike-mcginn-election-night-deathwatch

@5: I neither stated nor implied that mail-in ballots are not handled with care. I suggested that mail-in ballots be "handled with somewhere near the care that ballots collected at poling stations once received." As I understood it, ballots were then hauled around in bags with tamper-evident seals and logged as they changed hands from one person to another, much like the chain-of-custody records kept for criminal evidence--or Certified Mail. Now, they're treated with no more care than a piece of first class mail.

@13: Yes, it would be expensive to transport ballots with great caution. It always has been. When we cut costs by eliminating poling stations, we further cut costs by eliminating maintenance of chain-of-custody records for our ballots. People could check the status of their ballots prior to going all-mail-in, yet as I understand it, we also maintained careful records of where those ballots went. Why was it important then but not now?

@18:

One anecdotal account from someone who claims their ballot wasn't mailed doesn't invalidate the USPS's OFFICIAL POLICY that they WILL forward and always have forwarded unstamped ballots. Weigh this one example against the literally tens of thousands of unstamped ballots that ARE delivered:

http://kuow.org/post/no-you-dont-need-stamp-your-ballot

This rally does need to be a statewide thing. I can see someone from the Republican counties arguing that this is an unfair advantage to King County voters and trying to cast doubt on election results - I don't think that is a great argument but it could cause delays in certifying an election or cost $$ to defend. In any event the state ought to be dong whatever it can to increase voter participation.

Phil dear, I think you can rest assured that the USPS does indeed transport ballots "with great caution". And - as I said before - you can already check to make sure the election department got it, which is the point of a certified letter. Everything is handled as carefully as it ever was. Just because we don't use ledgers and eyeshades doesn't mean that things aren't being tended to.