County reports ballot confusion
Large number of voters mistakenly punch two cards

BRAD SHANNON THE OLYMPIAN 11 September 2004

Half of the voters in Thurston County who turned in early absentee ballots for Tuesday's new Montana-style primary election are getting it wrong.
Many voters, despite being told to vote one ballot, are ing two punching out chads on both a partisan and a nonpartisan ballot.

In response, Auditor's Office staff members have begun transferring the nonpartisan votes to whichever partisan ballot the voter sent in, Auditor Kim Wyman said Friday. Tabulation of votes won't begin until after polls close at 8 p.m. Tuesday.

"We're not going to count two ballots, so we are consolidating the way that they voted onto the party ballot. We have two-person teams there checking ... for security reasons," Wyman said.

"We actually have a log for each and every ballot. ... We count the party ballot. If there was ever a question and someone wanted to see that, we could do that."

It's a standard practice that has been used for years in cases where a damaged ballot needed to be duplicated for the purpose of counting it in a machine, Wyman and Secretary of State Sam Reed both said.

But the procedure is unnerving to some candidates.

"There's an interpretation process being done by the auditor's office. My concern is that there needs to be observers there and that it's not done only with the eyes of the auditor's staff," said Randy Scott, Democratic candidate for the 22nd Legislative District seat, who has four Democratic and three Republican opponents.

Scott said he's not concerned about his own vote total being affected, but he is concerned the entire election could end up in court.

Another 22nd district candidate, Laura Ware, expressed similar concern, saying observers from both political parties should be on hand.

The problem is caused by the ballot design, which incorporates the nonpartisan races on the back part of the partisan ballot, Ware said.

"I had pretty educated constituents not understanding you have to flip the ballot. ... It's not clear where the nonpartisan races are on the partisan ballots," Ware said.

Joe Sloan, a nonpartisan candidate for Thurston County Superior Court, said his first reaction was one of concern, although he said he prefers to take a wait-and-see approach.

"People make mistakes," Sloan said. "Honest people can make mistakes. Plus, if they're doing a large quantity, fatigue can set in. It happens."

Wyman said some political observers have come by to watch the ballot handling, and the only complaint she's heard dealt with the way nonpartisan ballots were explained to the public.

Wyman also said it's been hard to get Republicans and Democrats to take time off from campaigning to come watch.

Concerns about this year's ballots are heightened because the state is moving to a new Montana-style primary in which voters are given a choice of three partisan ballots Republican, Democratic or Libertarian or a nonpartisan ballot for nonaffiliated races such as the Supreme Court, Superior Court, fire districts and tax measures such as Olympia's parks and sidewalks proposal.

Under standard procedures, Wyman's staff begins processing absentees 10 days before the day of the primary election, which falls on Sept. 14 this year. That includes the verification of signatures on the outer envelopes sent by voters, removal of ballots from inside a separate security envelope and checking to see that voters did not use more than one party's ballot.

Reed said he has no concerns about the ballot counting becoming a problem.

"There may be some grousing, but I really don't see a basis for any court challenges," Reed said.

The error rate in Thurston County isn't being duplicated elsewhere, Reed said.

"It appears to be a bit of an anomaly. Unfortunately, it does slow things down," he said. "But elections people are trained to do that (duplicating). They have two of them every time."

The decision to go ahead and instruct county auditors to count the extra ballots was made months ago by Reed's office.

"We realized this was the first time in 70 years we've had this kind of system," Reed said. "So we were trying to be as flexible as possible to help the voters.

"What you don't like to do is throw the votes out. I feel sorry for Kim and her staff because it's a lot of work."