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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Marty Trillhaase (Tribune's new editorial writer)
penned another good one on Saturday (below). He gave us an early
announcement about the Vote by Mail group now starting in Idaho. The
group's website is </FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2><A
href="http://idahovotebymail.org/">http://idahovotebymail.org/</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Their goal is to bypass the pathetic Idaho
legislature with an initiative to be on the 2012 ballot to allow mail voting in
Idaho (like in Oregon or Washington). </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I went to the website and signed up to
help.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>BL</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>------------</FONT></DIV>
<DIV>
<H1>Idaho requires do-it-yourself legislating</H1>
<P>Marty Trillhaase<BR>June 27, 2009</P>
<P><BR>Allowing people to vote at home is convenient. It's private. It may
reverse declining voter turnout.</P>
<P>It's also never going to happen. Not as long as Idaho's Legislature has the
final word on the matter.</P>
<P>Consequently, Idaho Vote by Mail wants to get an initiative on the 2012
ballot. Ordinary people then can make the law entrenched political interests
refuse to pass.</P>
<P>This may sound strange to Washington and Oregon residents, where voting by
mail is already second nature. But Idaho's 44 county clerks have been waging a
losing effort to expand voting by mail opportunities since 2006. Had their first
measure passed, county commissioners could have implemented it on a local-option
basis. Their bill was on its way to a House floor vote when State Affairs
Committee Chairman Tom Loertscher, R-Iona, pulled it back to his panel for
technical corrections. It never saw daylight again.</P>
<P>Clerks returned in 2007 with this offer: Allow voters to sign up for a
permanent absentee ballot. Today an absentee ballot application is valid only
for a year. </P>
<P>The bill never got out of Loertscher's committee.</P>
<P>Nor did it go anywhere the following year when Secretary of State Ben Ysursa
endorsed the concept.</P>
<P>Who is served by this intransigence? </P>
<P>Not the voters who prefer to avoid standing in long lines at polling
stations.</P>
<P>Not place-bound people who may find it too challenging to leave home in order
to vote.</P>
<P>Not the person whose education, church mission or employment keeps him too
far from home to cast a ballot on Election Day.</P>
<P>Critics say permanent absentee balloting will lead to voter fraud. How does
that square with the greater scrutiny absentee voting receives? When a citizen
casts an absentee ballot, her signature on the ballot envelope must match with a
copy on file with the election clerk's office. </P>
<P>Where county clerks promoted the practice, absentee balloting mushroomed last
year. In Ada County, 43.5 percent of the votes were cast on absentee ballots.
That's nearly a three-fold increase in absentee voting since the 2004
presidential election. </P>
<P>No one has cried voter fraud in that or any other county.</P>
<P>The trend was mirrored in north central Idaho as well:</P>
<P>l Nez Perce County - 4,222 people voted absentee, 23 percent of the total.
That's almost double the absentee voting rate in 2004's presidential
election.</P>
<P>l Latah County - 3,584 absentee ballots, 19.8 percent of the total.</P>
<P>l Lewis County - 215 absentee ballots or 11.6 percent.</P>
<P>l Idaho County - 1,965 absentee ballots or 23.1 percent.</P>
<P>l Clearwater County - 694 absentee ballots or 17.3 percent.</P>
<P>Why would politicians oppose something this popular? </P>
<P>Because under today's rules, they're winning. Change the rules and they might
lose. Some of last year's absentee vote trended more Democratic than the ballots
cast on Election Day.</P>
<P>If Idahoans want to expand their franchise, they must do it themselves. The
people they send to Boise will never do it for them.-
M.T.</P></DIV></BODY></HTML>