Election process sees few gremlins
Snohomish and Island counties report few glitches in Tuesday's primary, but turnout is low.

By Jerry Cornfield    Everett Herald   21 September 2005

EVERETT - Snohomish County officials reported no major hiccups in Tuesday's election, the first major test since the legal fight and legislative reforms spurred by last fall's epic ballot battle for governor.

Elections manager Carolyn Diepenbrock said she had not been told of any voters protesting the new requirement to show identification before receiving a ballot. Nor did the pick-a-party primary generate the level of opposition it did a year ago.

There were glitches with technology. Two touch-screen voting machines suffered "minor calibration issues" that poll workers corrected, she said. In both cases, the computers would not accept voters' initial ions.

Snohomish County Democratic Party Chairman Mark Hintz, an election observer, said the incidents occurred in Lake Stevens and Snohomish.

Also, several of the voter card activation devices required resetting because they did not have the right time and date readings. Those calibrations were corrected, Diepenbrock said.

On Tuesday, Snohomish County tallied 50,512 mail ballots, out of 201,000 the county sent out for the primary. Starting today, election workers will prepare for counting an estimated 12,000 ballots that arrived on election day in the mail or were ped off at poll sites.

Workers must also contact 687 voters who did not sign their mail ballot envelopes or whose signature on the envelope did not match their signature on file with county elections. Those ballots will be counted once voters resolve the signature problems.

Island County conducted its election entirely by mail. Nearly 29,000 ballots went out, and 11,141 had been returned by Tuesday afternoon, Island County Auditor Suzanne Sinclair said.

Sinclair reported no problems, though one voter returned a ballot unopened and with a note of protest scrawled on the outside.