King County is about to have another test of its troubled voting system. Meanwhile the elections department is without a leader and the county council is still debating whether the post should be appointed or elected.
The county should appoint a qualified leader for the elections department who takes the job seriously. But my recent experience with absentee ballots suggests that, thankfully, there's been some improvement since the rollercoaster recount in the race for governor two years ago.
When I moved back to Seattle earlier this year, I notified the county and mailed a notorized cancellation to the elections department in New York. I recently got an absentee ballot addressed to me at home in Seattle and another at my mother's house in the suburbs. The one at my home was clearly labeled as correct and included explanation -- in English and Chinese -- specifying that only that second ballot would be counted.
I expected a mix-up and there's still a possibility of trouble when the vote-counting starts. There's at least one report of an erroneoulsy mailed ballot from King County. But my experience makes me feel more confident that at least the ballots are getting out. That's a step in the right direction.