No election year seems complete until we whine about the inane way in which Washington state conducts its elections.

First, of course, is voting by mail. Voting by mail was once done through absentee ballots, largely by people in the military or those who felt compelled to spend a couple of weeks golfing in Arizona. But then someone decided voting by mail was cheaper than opening and manning voting booths on a single election day. Former Island County Auditor Art Hyland was one of the first to jump on the vote-by-mail bandwagon, which may help explain why he is referred to as “former.”

Oregon was one of the first vote-by-mail states. But it at least had the common sense to make people vote by election day. That is, any votes received after election day were not counted.

Washington’s nonsensical representatives in Olympia didn’t even have the brains to copy Oregon’s model. The dim bulbs in our state’s capitol decided ballots need not be received by election day, but only postmarked on that day. As a result, ballots dribble in for days or weeks. If there’s ever a close presidential election that depends on the election outcome from Washington voters, the media will revolt awaiting the results. That one ballot postmarked on election day in Tibet might decide who’s president and yet take months to arrive by yak.

Voting by mail with its added complexity of sending out thousands of ballots separated by precinct, including military forces worldwide, necessitated moving primary elections head. The primary, once sensibly held in September just prior to the general election in November, is now held in August. In fact, it’s worse than that because the law allows ballots to be mailed out three weeks in advance.

As a result, Friday, July 20, thousands of Whidbey Island residents received ballots that don’t have to be postmarked for return until the official election day, Aug. 7.

One hopeful thing this year is that the ballots arrived on the first day of Ramadan, which may well violate some tenet of Islam. We urge our Muslim friends to complain vociferously, then surely our politically correct Legislature will go back to voting the old fashioned way that doesn’t even require a stamp.