Metropolitan King County Councilmember Dow Constantine today filed legislation to protect the right of county residents to cast a secret ballot.

“The right to cast a secret ballot is guaranteed to all citizens by our state Constitution,” said Constantine. “We must protect this right by ensuring that we accurately track the return of every voter’s sealed envelope, while preventing any chance that the ballot inside could be connected with a particular voter.”

The motion would establish a policy that no unique identifying numbers or marks of any kind may be placed on ballots by the King County Elections Section. It would also set preserving the secrecy of individual ballots and ensuring an accurate vote count as the county’s highest priorities in all elections.