Washington State Secretary of State

Why are things like this even elected offices? They should be appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state legislature or something. Anyway, four candidates:

• Sam Reed (Prefers Republican Party): This is the incumbent. He has been Secretary of State since 2001. “Throughout his eight years in office, Sam led major election reforms: Consolidating 39 separate county registration systems into one statewide database to remove duplicate voters, felons, and deceased voters; moving the primary to August so those overseas can receive their ballots in a timely manner; ending ballot enhancements; and auditing county election departments. Sam kept fighting for your right to vote without being restricted to a party, and was ultimately supported by the U.S. Supreme Court. Thanks to Sam, you can now go online to register to vote, start a business, or research your family genealogy. He saved and enhanced Washington’s oldest institution, the State Library, and he started the nation’s first state digital archive.” He was a major proponent of the top two primary. I may have to vote for him just for that.
• Mark Greene (Prefers Party of Commons Party): He likes the top 2 primary. He is a representative of a party that is “economically progressive, culturally traditional” which is just about the opposite of me (economically conservative, socially liberal). So no.
• Jason Osgood (Prefers Democratic Party): He is against flawed electronic voting machines and some voter privacy violations and some other things that he says Reed is for. This might be good. I am wary of those things too. There are some places I found that says he is against the top two thing too. I can’t verify that in my quick searching. He is also against all-mail voting. I like the idea of all mail voting. I’ll pass on him due to these two items.
• Marilyn Montgomery (Prefers Constitution Party): She is an advocate of equal ballot access laws (to stop the extra roadblocks to third parties). I am generally in favor of this. There doesn’t seem to be a lot more here though, and it isn’t quite enough to convince me.

So my vote is:

Sam Reed

And now lunch is over and I need to run to a meeting. More when I leave work in a few more hours.