Yesterday I was on a panel speaking to a session of the Idaho Association of Counties Midwinter Conference, and during a discussion of election laws, the assembled county officials sent a remarkably strong message: They want vote-by-mail to improve how Idaho's elections work. It's an issue that's been roundly and repeatedly rejected in the Legislature in recent years, in large part because of the steadfast opposition of House State Affairs Chairman Tom Loertscher, R-Iona.

At the Riverside Hotel yesterday, the crowd included about 250 county officials - elected county commissioners, clerks, assessors and sheriffs from around the state - and when they brought up vote-by-mail and I asked how many there supported it, nearly every hand in the room went up. "Do you guys talk to your legislators?" was my response; theirs: Do they listen?