Commissioners unanimously approved a resolution Monday to allow Island County elections to be conducted entirely by mail.

Each of the commissioners had reservations about abolishing the communal poll voting experience, but brushed aside nostalgia and personal opinions and followed Auditor Suzanne Sinclair’s lead.

“As of the last general election, about 75 percent of Island County’s registered voters have chosen to vote by mail,” she told the board. “This percentage was about 30 percent when I first took office in November, 1997. The percentage has increased steadily, even as the number of registered voters has grown.”

Sinclair said a major advantage of voting by mail is that it generates higher voter turnout. The costs associated with staffing polling centers can also be significant, running as much as $15,000 for a countywide election.

Grethe Cammermeyer, former Island County Democratic Party chair, supported vote-by-mail elections, agreeing that keeping poll workers trained in a continually changing election environment is a formidable task.

“There are some inherent logistical problems that would certainly act as further support of making this an all vote-by-mail county,” the Langley resident said. “The numbers speak for themselves in terms of cost effectiveness.”

Harry Ferrier, auditor and elections supervisor from 1981 to 1990, also strongly supported the full transition, citing improved security and increased voter turnout in vote-by-mail elections.

“When everybody receives a ballot, then they certainly have the opportunity to vote,” he said. “If they have to make it to a polling place, they may decide, ‘Well, the weather’s lousy, I’m just not going to go today.’”

Commissioner John Dean underscored the importance of having the option of taking part in the voting experience.

“I ran into a 17-and-a-half-year-old that was very concerned because she had waited all her life to go to the polling place to vote,” he said. “There’s a need for some kind of rite of passage for new voters.”

Sinclair assuaged Dean’s concerns with her intentions to set up “regional voting centers,” tentatively planned for Oak Harbor, Freeland, the Camano Island Annex and Coupeville. Each location would have disabled access unit voter machines and secure ballot boxes where mail ballots can be deposited.

“This would allow a voter to have an alternate location for voting if they did not feel they could get privacy at home,” the auditor said. “I believe it would provide the proverbial ‘best of both worlds.’”

Although only the courthouse in Coupeville and the Camano Annex will issue replacement ballots, voters can take their children — and their ballots — with them to the centers to allow the young people to watch as they fill out their ballots, thus providing a makeshift voting experience and a place to effectively cast their vote.

The 13 voting machines that were purchased with federal grant funds in late 2005 will still be used in a limited capacity, with at least one unit stationed at each regional voting center.

“We would utilize four of them on a regular basis, have backup machines in reserve, and may be able to sell unneeded machines in a secondary market, which does exist,” Sinclair said.

Commissioner Mac McDowell was surprised that no meeting attendees spoke in favor of the current system. In fact, the county received only one e-mail praising poll voting.

“It’s sad that we’re ending up here,” he said.

Supporting the election change was a difficult decision, but one the commissioner ultimately made.

Board Chairman Mike Shelton said the most convincing reasoning for switching exclusively to vote-by-mail is the already large percentage of residents who fill out their ballots at home and drop them in the mailbox. However, the commissioner, like his two colleagues, prefers the polling experience.

“I for one am truly an old-style voter and I go to the polls and I like that,” he said. “You see people there that you don’t see often. If I had my druthers, that’s exactly what we would continue to do. However, as my wife often reminds me, I’m getting passed by in a lot of different areas of my life and this appears to be one of them.”

He added that regional voting centers will be critical for people who, as Sinclair said, were unable to postmark their ballots in time.

“You still have a place where you can go and make sure your ballot will count,” Shelton said. “While my personal preference would be to not do this, I certainly support it and certainly recognize why Suzanne brought this issue forward.”

“I’m very comfortable that this is the right thing to do at the right time,” Dean said.