Whether sleeved or naked, Pierce County has strong voting power to flex on Nov. 3
They’re called “naked ballots.” And while that might sound lascivious to the naked ear, the hard-working folks at the Pierce County Auditor’s Office aren’t electoral prudes. They want voters to know that ballots wearing nothing but an outer mailing envelope are perfectly legal in Washington and will be counted in the 2020 election.
As long as they’re turned in or postmarked by Nov. 3. Just like all the fully clothed ballots.
If you’re like us, however, you might wonder why the covering provided with your ballot is different this year. Gone is the traditional “secrecy envelope,” which caused plenty of confusion, plus more work for your salivary glands; remember the dry mouth that ensued after having to seal not one envelope but two?
In its place is a new “security sleeve,” which sounds lean and muscular, as if giving South Sounders more room to flex their voting power.
Some voters may be relieved to know they’re free to go sleeveless. Washington law allows ballots to be submitted naked, which distinguishes us from a handful of other states — most notably Pennsylvania, where the state Supreme Court recently ruled that any ballot not sealed in a secrecy envelope must be thrown out.
Nevertheless, it’s nice of local election officials to catch up with fashion trends.
Our is the last of Washington’s 39 counties to switch to a sleeve, according to Pierce County Auditor Julie Anderson. Her office would’ve liked to debut it for the August primary election, she told us in an email exchange, but felt duty-bound to exhaust its envelope stock.
It’s hard to argue against any change that reflects efficient use of taxpayer resources. Anderson said not having to open envelopes saves handlers 10 minutes for every tray of 250 ballots processed. And the ballot tucks easily into the sleeve, shielding it during that brief time when election workers extract it from the outer envelope and might see a voter’s name.
Best of all, it should increase confidence in our system, because there’s less chance some completed ballots will go uncounted. “We would always get ballots in secrecy envelopes with no outer envelope stuck in our ballot drop boxes,” Anderson explained. “These ballots couldn’t be counted and we couldn’t identify the voter. With a sleeve, it’s much less likely that a voter will get confused about which envelope is required.”
The auditor’s reasoning is solid. Our only quibble is the timing of the rollout, during an extraordinary election year when ballot integrity is in the spotlight like never before. Americans may be hypersensitive to even minor tweaks in voting procedures, thanks to a president who’s stoked unfounded fear of mail-in voting fraud.
A TNT letter writer gave voice to that legitimate concern: “With all the questions about mail in ballot security, why did Pierce County now decide to change the security procedure?” asked David Kuntze of Spanaway.
Anderson said her office hasn’t received many complaints or questions about the change. Most confusion doesn’t center on envelope vs. sleeve, she said, but rather on whether the extra layer of privacy protection is mandatory for voters — especially in light of the September court ruling in Pennsylvania.
The Auditor’s Office decided to print “optional” in bold letters on one side of the sleeves, a step not taken with the old envelopes. “In the past, we’d get panicked calls from voters who would find their secrecy envelope on the kitchen counter after they voted,” Anderson said.
Hats off to county officials for correcting this oversight. The fact that Washingtonians don’t have to sweat details like this, unlike Pennsylvania voters who may be disenfranchised by a technicality, testifies to the benefits of a well-established vote-by-mail system.
Here in the Great Northwest, there’s widespread comfort voting anywhere at home, any time of day or night, fully dressed or something less than that.
There’s comfort knowing our ballots don’t have to be fully dressed, either.