Will Washington become another Florida?

King County is the largest county in Washington State, and a reliable Democratic stronghold.  By November 7th, 67% of King County voters are expected to vote by mail.  However there is a snag reminiscent of the Florida 2000 butterfly ballot fiasco. Specifically, voters cannot put regular stamps on their ballot envelopes.  The King County Elections authority included a blue insert with the ballots that directs voters to disregard the square on the ballot envelope that says "Postage required - Affix First Class Stamp here."  The blue insert says that "due to the length of your November General Election ballot, additional postage is required, 63 cents total."

But it gets more complicated. The blue notice is printed in Chinese on one side and English on the other.  It's easy to miss the small print that says "turn over for English" on the Chinese side and vice-versa.  And there is no insert in other languages, like Spanish.

And now, the Washington State Democratic Party is compounding the problem. They recently sent a mailing to Democratic voters called "STAMP OUT The Bush Agenda With a 39 cent Postage Stamp."  The mailing, shown below, has 5 pictures of a 39 cent stamp, including one 39 cent stamp right on the ballot envelope, where, if you hadn't read the blue notice, you would have thought you should place a 39 cent stamp.  Ooops.

Update: The US Postal Service will deliver the ballots anyway. So this isn't as big as deal as I first feared, though it's still pretty silly.

(Click images to see larger versions)