Elections office short of staff at a bad time

COLFAX - Whitman County Auditor Eunice Coker is scrambling to address some recent turnover in the county elections office - barely a month before ballots go out for the Aug. 1 primary.

Longtime Elections Supervisor Debbie Hooper resigned last week to take a new job in Pullman. That left Elections Technician Karen Bafus as the only employee in the two-person office.

Bafus was promoted to the supervisor's spot Monday. Coker said another employee in the auditor's office also is certified to handle some elections activities. However, the turnover still leaves the elections office short-staffed, with the primary fast approaching.

Ballots for the Aug. 1 primary will be mailed to voters July 14.

"The one thing that makes me feel a little less stressed is that Karen doesn't have a huge learning curve," Coker said. "She just needs that extra person."

Bafus has worked in the elections office since 2005 and is familiar with its duties and requirements. However, Coker has long cited inadequate staffing as a major factor in the long string of elections errors that date back at least four years.

The problems include candidate names being misspelled or omitted, incorrect language on ballot measures, incorrect ballots being mailed to voters, and ballots either not being mailed or not being received by significant numbers of voters.

A 2016 audit by the Washington Secretary of State's Office also found that the office committed 20 elections violations during the 2015 general election, ranging from improper drop-box security to an accidental early tabulation of the vote.

"When we've had errors in the past, it's because we're understaffed," Coker said.

She's hoping to ease some of the strain by outsourcing the ballot-mailing activities to a private vendor. The company will insert ballots into the envelopes and mail them to voters; the county will cover the mailing costs and pay a piece-rate fee for the service.

That move was in the works before Hooper resigned, Coker said.

She's also working to update job descriptions for the elections office. That could help address some pay inequity issues, which she feels were a factor in Hooper's decision to leave.

"Debbie's leaving is extremely worrisome, but we'll work through that," Coker said. "The salary issues that caused her to leave - that's more rampant."

Coker expects to start advertising for the elections technician position in the next week or so. She also has contacted the Spokane County Auditor's Office, which uses the same ballot tabulation software as Whitman County. They've offered to provide temporary help during the primary.

Once the new technician is on board, she said, the Secretary of State's Office has offered to send someone to Colfax to provide two days of training. In addition, Bafus and Coker will participate in an annual elections training conference next week that's put on by the Washington State Association of County Auditors.

While getting the office back to full staff is Coker's immediate concern, she's also troubled by legislation approved in Olympia this session that will quadruple the number of ballot drop-boxes required in Whitman County.

Most ballots are returned by mail, but the county still maintains four permanent drop-boxes - two in Colfax and two in Pullman - where people can deposit ballots without postage.

That satisfies the current statutory requirement, which calls for a minimum of one drop-box for every 15,000 residents and one box in each city that has a population of 1,000 or more.

The new bill, however, requires at least one drop box for every city, town and census-designated place that has a post office.

"That means 14 more drop-boxes in Whitman County," Coker said.

The legislation passed the Washington Senate on a unanimous vote; it passed the House 52-45 and was subsequently signed by the governor.

The bill gives each county auditor the flexibility to decide what type of drop-box to use - either a permanent metal box that remains in place for the entire 18-day voting period, or a temporary box that may only be in place on Election Day, or even a mobile box that's only available during certain hours on Election Day.

Nevertheless, Coker said two people - ideally one Democrat and one Republican - would still have to be present to unlock and lock each box. Any ballots collected also would have to be transported in a secure container.

"We'd have to train (the two poll workers) and manage them, and we'd need them four times a year," she said.

Coker doesn't expect to have any new drop-boxes in place for the primary, and she's not sure she'll have all of them available for the Nov. 7 general election.

Statewide, the bill nearly doubled the number of drop-boxes counties are required to provide, from 316 to 566, and the legislation didn't include any funding.

"We've had some years with 300 or more changes in elections laws," Coker said, "but I feel like this is the worst, most unnecessary change to come up in the time I've been auditor."

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Spence may be contacted at bspence@lmtribune.com or (208) 791-9168.