This morning electionline.org is highlighting a story in the Seattle Times, which reports that 18 ballots were apparently not counted in their recent September primary election. Apparently of these 18 uncounted ballots, 16 were found in a box (uncounted) and two absentee ballots were not counted simply becasue they were sent in some non-standard envelope which election workers seemed to fail to realize contained ballots (and thus were not counted).

What I found most interesting about this report was the quote from King County Vice Chairman Pete von Reichbauer: “I hope we don’t get to the stage where we have to bring in outside observers to our election like a Third World Country.”

What would be wrong with bringing in outside observers — even if they were not having any administrative problems in King County? Why would having outside election observers make King County somehow like a “Third World County” in terms of election administration? If you want to hear more about the importance of outside and unhampered election monitoring — in the United States — listen to my latest podcast.