| State follows Clallam's lead on voting 4/23/05 It looks like the State of Washington is finally going to catch up with Clallam County by allowing all voting to be done through the mail. Clallam County has done “all mail” balloting for the past three years after finding that most people had already signed up for “absentee voting” anyway. That brought an end to the use of polling places in 2002. The county is also implementing all-electronic voting to make balloting even more efficient. But other counties have continued to try and use polling places. However, following the fuss over the Governor’s race last fall, there’s a big push to election reform. Now it looks like the Legislature is passing a measure that would make it easier for all counties in the state to do all their voting by mail. Peninsula could get new Congressman New projections from the census office show that we could be voting for a different Congressman in the years to come, with the outlook that Western Washington will see the formation of a new district in the near future because of our population growth. The U-S Census Bureau says Washington should see a 46% jump in population growth in the next 25-years, to 8.6 million people. That would make us the 14th most populous state in the country, and give us another seat in the House of Representatives, although it probably wouldn’t happen until 2030. That would be the 10th Congressional District and would more than likely fall in Western Washington, although it will be a long time before we know where those boundaries would fall. The Peninsula was switched from the 2nd to the 6th Congressional district in 1991, creating a huge district that encompasses all of the Kitsap and Olympic Peninsulas as well as Tacoma. The Census Bureau says Washington would be the 9th fastest growing state over that next quarter century, but the growth won’t just be here. Idaho will be 6th fastest and Oregon the 10th fastest growing state.
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