Whereas Vote by Mail (VBM) denies voters their secret ballot, opening the door to stolen ballots, vote-selling, voter coercion and other forms of vote fraud,

Whereas large-scale absentee balloting has been around for at least ten years yet is still riddled with problems, as was demonstrated in the contentious gubernatorial race of 2004, (Examples of problems include lost ballots, signature verification problems, ballots lost in the mail. All the large-scale problems in 2004 came from the absentee ballot process.)

Whereas 100% VBM is more expensive than our current hybrid system of mixed absentee balloting and poll voting,

Whereas 100% VBM decreases both voter choice and voter participation,

Whereas election problems are easier to hide under a vote by mail system, and there have been numerous national and international incidents of election fraud involving vote by mail,

Whereas the Puget Sound USPS reports a delivery error rate of 1.4%, meaning that 2-3% of ballots will be lost either en route to or from the voter,

Whereas voters cannot verify their mail ballot was cast prior to election deadline,

Whereas a voter does not have the opportunity to fix a spoiled mail ballot, requiring the canvassing board to determine the voter's intent,

Whereas 100% VBM will amplify the problems demonstrated by our experience with absentee voting,

Be it resolved that we oppose 100% Vote By Mail,

Be it resolved that we support retaining our precinct-based polling places with ballots read by precinct-based optical scanners (PBOS).