Few faulty ballots found
Snohomish County election officials ultimately rejected only 1.3 percent of paper ballots in the primary.

By Jeff Switzer    Everett Herald     10 October 2005

It used to be that voter errors meant hundreds of rejected absentee ballots. But with the recent state election reforms, more than 1,000 primary election voters in Snohomish County got a second chance.

Those reforms now force county auditors to make phone calls and send letters before rejecting ballots in cases of mismatched signatures or unsigned envelopes on mail ballots.

That effort, enacted because of the 2004 gubernatorial election, led county staff to send 1,093 letters and call the voters up to three times. Leaving a message wasn't enough, county election manager Carolyn Diepenbrock said.

The result: 832 voters responded, and their ballots were counted.

The 261 ballots that weren't counted were among a total of 1,162 rejected because of voter errors, mostly for being postmarked late.

As a precaution, county staff flagged the records of 58 voters who had recently died. No ballots were returned in their names, Diepenbrock said.

Election integrity is stronger since the state reforms, county Auditor Bob Terwilliger said.

"After the November election, the public wanted a higher level of accountability on our part. The message is we're accounting for everything," he said.

The numbers reveal a surprise about voters, he said.

"We learned that voters do not have any major concerns about showing identification at the polls," Terwilliger said, noting that only 23 people showed up without acceptable ID. "That's good news."

But more than 1,000 ballots were not counted because the voters did not sign their ballot envelopes, did not clear up questions about their signatures, or their ballots were postmarked too late.

"There's a partnership between you and us," Terwilliger said, referring to voters and election officials. "We need to have you do your part, and your ballot will be counted."

The primary election bolstered Terwilliger's desire for mail-only voting.

One benefit of mail voting is that more people tend to vote, he said.

Another is that it's easier for the county to keep voter rolls up to date because every voter is tracked each election, and provisional ballots are significantly reduced.

"I saw nothing in our primary that said we have a higher degree of security and integrity with voting at the polls," Terwilliger said.

One felon cast a ballot in the primary, and four people voted twice, he said. "Here's the point: None of those ballots got counted," Terwilliger said.

However, County Council Chairman Gary Nelson said figures show that the county's voter database is not very accurate. Ballots may be sent to the wrong address or to the wrong people, he said.

"Ballots were returned where it was quite evident the individuals signing the ballot were not registered voters," Nelson said. "People still are not aware of the sanctions that are potentially imposed on individuals who are not eligible to vote or who vote for somebody else."

State law requires that questionable ballots be turned over to county prosecutors. "We have to take action on the ones reviewed by the canvassing board as fraudulent or not eligible to vote," Nelson said.

All county voter records will go to the Office of the Secretary of State to eliminate fraud by voters casting ballots in more than one county, and to clear up the records of voters who have changed their names or moved, Nelson said.

"I still have more confidence in polling-place voting and the resulting accountability than mail-in ballots," Nelson added.