Records raise new questions about 40 voters

By Keith Ervin    Seattle Times  12 March 2005

Forty voters who improperly put their provisional ballots through polling-site counting machines in King County during the Nov. 2 governor's election were credited with casting additional votes, county records released yesterday indicate.

Elections Superintendent Bill Huennekens said he doesn't know how many of them might have actually voted twice. "We would have to go back and look at each one of them," he said yesterday.

There are two possible explanations: Either the voters did indeed cast more than one vote, or they were incorrectly credited with more than one vote.

Asked if he plans to examine those voters' records, Huennekens said he has not had a chance to talk about it with his boss, Elections Director Dean Logan.

Logan will appear before the Metropolitan King County Council Monday to answer questions about mistakes in the Nov. 2 election and how the process can be improved.

Election records released yesterday also showed that many more provisional ballots than previously acknowledged were mistakenly put through counting machines before the voters' eligibility to vote could be verified.

But those records also suggested that the total number of ballots that haven't been fully accounted for is smaller than previously released numbers indicated.

Countywide, the numbers showed, some polling places had 216 more ballots than voters who signed poll books, while others tallied 159 more voters than votes. Those numbers covered poll voters but not absentees, who accounted for nearly two-thirds of the total vote.

That polling-place discrepancy is much smaller than the discrepancy of 1,853 previously reported between the total number of poll and absentee ballots counted and voters credited in the computer system with voting. Election officials say the newly released numbers are more reliable.
  
  
Huennekens said the numbers show "a very concerted effort" made during the two weeks after the election to assure its integrity. "That's what the [information] demonstrates," he said. "It also demonstrates that there's no evidence of any fraud."

State Republican Chairman Chris Vance, however, called the county's ballot-accounting records "a colossal mess" that strengthens his party's campaign for a revote.

He said he was particularly troubled by news about the 40 provisional ballots.

"That's very significant," Vance said.

State Democratic Party Chairman Paul Berendt cautioned against jumping to conclusions.

"A double credit oftentimes is human error," Berendt said. "On face value, I don't find that to be that odd or out of character. They'll have to take a look at it to see what they'll find."

The 40 voters in question are among 348 known to have improperly put provisional ballots into counting machines.

Ninety-two of the 348 voters were deemed ineligible to vote because they weren't registered, they were credited with casting other votes or they had signature problems.

But documents released yesterday also show that the number of provisional ballots believed to have gone through polling-place tabulators is considerably higher than the 348 documented cases.

At the Bothell Regional Library, 31 provisional ballots apparently went through counters but couldn't be definitively matched with specific voters. Thirty provisional ballots were mishandled at Denny Terrace in Seattle.

The election staff made 660 "adjustments" for mishandled provisional ballots and other identified errors.