People who like to excuse their absence from the polls on election day by saying that their votes don't count should be taking note of what is going on in Bellevue. Just one vote can make a world of difference in a multitude of ways.

Obviously one vote in a municipal election can decide a race. But in the case of Bellevue's first ward council election, one vote could have a dramatic impact on the entire voting system for many years to come.

For those of you who have not been keeping up with the story, an absentee ballot was lost for a week after the election. When it surfaced from the trunk of an election official's car, it contained a vote that created a tie for a seat on Bellevue Council.

State law is pretty clear on the subject. Absentee ballots have to be opened at the local polling place on election day. They have to be opened in front of interested observers and an opportunity provided for someone to say, "Hey, I saw that guy up the street this afternoon. He can't vote by absentee ballot!"

What the election code doesn't state specifically is what happens when this law is not obeyed. That interpretation has been left to the courts. So far, the courts have not addressed the specific violation of law that occurred in this case, but that will change very, very soon.

The challenge to Bellevue's lost ballot was rejected by the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas, but that decision has been appealed to the state's Commonwealth Court.

The decision is an important one, because it involves so much more than who will take a seat on Bellevue Council in January. At issue here is the credibility and integrity of the entire elections system.

The county elections department has taken it upon itself to decide which state laws it will enforce, and which it will ignore. People who vote in Bellevue can have a completely different law applied to them than those who vote in Erie or Reading. That in itself erodes the credibility of the system.

Then there is the issue of how absentee ballots are opened. The potential for abuse in the counting of ballots that are marked outside of the polling place with a pencil or pen just boggles the mind. When those ballots are opened and counted outside public view, they immediately become subject to suspicion.

On the other side of the issue is the sanctity of the individual vote. It certainly isn't the absentee voter's fault that election officials didn't do their jobs. Doesn't he have a right to have his vote counted?

Whatever the Commonwealth Court decides, this is an important issue that needs to be resolved. We need to be able to trust our voting procedures and our elections officials. We've seen -- in places like Afghanistan -- what happens when the law and trust are left in the dust.