From the 'OK, I'm a fossil' file...

I see that Snohomish County, with the support of the Democratic majority on the County Council, has gone the way of all mail elections. County Executive Ron Sims has his own proposal in the works for King County. The notion seems to be generally well received in the progressive blogosphere, but I find myself saddened.

Part of it's nostalgia. I remember childhood election days as the only days my Mom would walk us to school, so that she could go into the gymnasium and enter a curtained booth to cast her ballot. It seemed like everyone had a parent in tow those days, with lines of moms and dads taking their turn at publicly exercising their franchise, collectively demonstrating the most fundamental responsibility of citizenship.

It made and impression on me, a lasting one, and every election day, whether the ballot is topped by a Presidential ticket or a sewer levy, I proudly join my similarly traditionalist neighbors and cast my vote in person. If that is, as I believe, my fundamental responsibility as a citizen, and that acting in the public square is an inherently valuable part of that act, then it would seem that the government has a corresponding responsibility to afford me a place to do so.

Alas, it is no longer to be, I'm afraid. Though there's talk of some legacy polling places, they'll be distant for most, and no one will be likely to encounter their children's classmates in the parking lot or that friendly guy from across the street whose name you can't quite place at the next polling booth.

It will never be the same.

Part of it's the political consultant in me coming out. 'Twas a time when an absentee program was a managable affair. It just came down to the dollars, really. If you could afford it, your mail vendor would make sure that every absentee voter got a brochure coincident with their ballot. If you couldn't afford it, you had to hope against a close election. There weren't all that many absentees then, but it was dangerous to take them for granted.

Of course, there were all kinds of assumptions made about who those voters were and what their voting behavior was. The basic assumption was that the ballot would be in the return mail within 36 hours or so, so you really got one good shot at their attention. As the number of postal voters has grown, in no small part due to the organized efforts of the state Democratic Party, it seems that more ballots are being returned later in the cycle. That's one of the reasons for delays in the results of some close races, and it looks like a nightmare from a campaign management standpoint to me.

If people are holding an unmarked ballot for a week, or two, or a month, every day holds the potential for a different voting decision. Every campaign that can will have to find a way to put a message in front of that voter every day until that decision is made. That means the last minute blitz that usually surrounds election day, all that mail, all those hits, all the responses, all the blood and gore of election day will start weeks earlier, and take a dramatically greater financial toll.

This might be particularly costly for the winners of contested primaries unless the state finally takes action to move our September primary forward on the calendar. Given the increased campaign costs that are bound to be associated with winning all mail elections, there will be little opportunity for candidates to financially refuel for a similarly costly general election, which will necessarily begin immediately.

And where will all this money come from, you might ask? Don't ask.

I don't know. Maybe I'm just a grumpy old guy, a relic of the 20th century.

One thing is certain. Andrew is right on the money when he writes "...the very concept of Election Day is fading away." I'm just not at all certain that's a good thing for our democracy.