Dead men tell no tales (but their votes do count)

Let's set the record straight: If you're dead, you can't vote. But if you vote and die before Election Day, in this state at least, it will (and should) be counted.

Election reform has been in the news for several years now after all sorts of problems in the 2000 presidential election, particularly Florida, and subsequently the 2004 Washington gubernatorial contest between Chris Gregoire and Dino Rossi. One thing that did happen in this state was a sweeping purge in 2006 of felons and dead people still registered and on the books.

That gubernatorial race was decided by a margin of 133 votes out of 3 million cast -- with more than a dozen ballots linked to dead people.

So, it was an interesting national story that recently broke, which points out that states differ on how votes are handled when they are cast by live people who die before the official Election Day. Oregon counts ballots no matter what happens to the voter. So does Florida. But in South Dakota, if you die before the election, so does your vote.

The situation takes on new meaning in popular vote-by-mail elections, in which the voting time frames are greatly expanded beyond the traditional one day. In Washington, for example, the ballots go out to registered voters 20 days before Election Day.

A spokesman for Secretary of State Sam Reed said that in this state -- where only King and Pierce counties still offer physical polling places in addition to the mail ballot -- a voter need only be alive when he or she casts a ballot and signs the oath on the outer return envelope. Once that's done, the ballot will still count, even if the voter dies the same day.

And that makes sense. There's a big difference between someone else casting a vote in the name of a dead person and people who die after their ballots are voted and the oath signed. The latter should be included in the final tally.

South Dakota Secretary of State Chris Nelson told The Associated Press that he doesn't understand why a dead person's vote should be counted: "You have to be a qualified voter on Election Day. I don't know how someone can say you're a qualified voter if you're deceased."

That, of course, ignores the reality of the 20-day election period in this state. Election Day in a sense is somewhat of a formality that ends the voting process so ballots can be tabulated.

The state-by-state interpretation of the validity of such ballots is but another example of the need for uniform federal regulation of elections, particularly presidential contests.

If you legally vote while you're alive, then it should be a live vote.

* Members of the Yakima Herald-Republic editorial board are Michael Shepard, Sarah Jenkins, Bill Lee and Karen Troianello.

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